Twisted
by The Fictionist
Summary: AU. The birthplace of inspiration and the graveyard of stories. Basically, my oneshot bank, where I siphon all the ideas I get whilst working on other things.
1. Femme Fatale

Tamsin Riddle never understood how women were supposed to be soft.

If the world wanted its girls soft and delicate, unfurling like lovely flower petals in the sun, then the world should make it significantly easier not to be a man.

To survive womanhood required steel. It required manicuring her nails to claws, and growing strong to protect herself.

First year, she learnt to carve her words like daggers so that they had to listen to what she said, instead of watching the way her mouth moved or just not listening at all.

Nice girls, from all she had seen, didn't get very far. Tamsin disliked limitations, and refused to be caged by the necessities of a good reputation.

So it was probably just as well that she had never been a nice girl.

…And yet, to see Harriet Potter turning away to another purer table, for a moment she wished she was.

* * *

By second year, Tamsin had a smile so sweet that it rotted her opponents from the inside out to dust. If they wanted sugar and spice, then she would sprinkle the pristine pieces of herself with shards of glass until she sparkled like the finest frosting.

She understood that everything was power, and that the only way a lady could be considered on the level of a lord was if she was double the strength.

They would cut themselves for the audacity of touching.

Being equal was not enough.

And she would satisfy herself with watching a dimpled, too bright smile that was directed to someone who wasn't her.

* * *

Tamsin never understood how girls were supposed to chase after a rich and loving husband - when love was worthless, and relying on the wealth of others was something that sickened her.

By third year, she'd ensnared them in their disgusting lusts, and began to destroy them for being so arrogant as to underestimate her. She played with their hearts, and their minds, and let them believe that they were so generous as to help her - as if she would ever need their assistance at all. But people loved to do a girl a favour, and she'd learnt how to barter whilst they still sucked on their entitlement like overgrown infants.

She saw her kiss red lips and short windswept hair messy like boy's, after Gryffindor beat Slytherin for the Quidditch cup, and something grew hot and possessive in her chest.

And she wanted more.

* * *

Tamsin understood why women were prized on giving life, but by fourth year she had vowed to show them how well she could offer death.

Murder was not the sole domain of men, but she could be as patient as the snakes that spawned her and be 'good' to stand aside. The men could die in their ridiculous wars, and she would quietly craft the poison in her heart until it could be weaponized.

She would be Medusa. She had snakes on her tongue, instead of in her hair, but to have the world bow at her feet in fear of ever meeting her gaze seemed a most gratifying thing.

But green eyes had finally turned to her, curious and gleaming with an abashed-defiance.

Good girls waited their turn, but she had always been better at taking.

And so with panting breaths, flushed cheeks, eager shared touches that proved far too chaste and fleeting, she did.

* * *

By fifth year, Tamsin had mastered the art of turning those unworthy into stone. She had snatched her throne, whilst they preened themselves on false claims and boasts of being the heir of Slytherin .

When they finally took heed, it was too late as she'd known, and she took the greatest glee on crushing whoever got too close beneath her foot. What were heels made for, after all, except to add knives to the arsenal of innocence?

She felt clenched fists against her shirt, and saw how other girls were monsters too. Beautiful hungry beasts, but her pretty mouth snarled for a better world and softer things.

And she understood for the first time that to be Medusa was to be alone.

* * *

By sixth year, Tamsin was the undisputed sovereign of the shadows, and the empress of her court.

Plans had to be made because a small slice of it would never be enough. Life secondhand was not life, and she could not bear the thought of watching it slip past her through death or because life was busy on the other side of the secretary's desk.

She was no longer a girl. She was power and potential, and everyone should know to be careful of such wild things. Even Harriet Potter.

And yet, green eyes stared back at the gorgon unflinching and unfazed.

Maybe her soul had been stone all along.

* * *

By seventh year, a frozen peace had been snatched, and as all rejoiced she thirsted for the taste of blood, and for war.

She was not soft. She was not sweet. Her beauty was the fierce lure of a siren, and she would summon all who would listen to her call.

If a Lady had to be twice as good as a Lord, then it was just as well she'd found the twin that her very name prophesied. The challenge to rejuvnate her.

They were sitting on the edges of the black lake, fingers discreetly entwined.

It was their graduation ceremony in half an hour, and the sun was beginning to set.

She'd taken what she wanted, and now nothing would stand in her way.

* * *

_A/N: I had a series of oneshots and various things up at one point. I cannot for the life of me remember why I took it down? But anyway. Expect a splurge of A03-transferred fics etc. Most will be familiar to older readers of mine._

The Prompt for Femme Fatale came from laughing mad, on tumblr, who wanted a genderbent Tom taking over Slytherin :)


	2. Siren Song

The creatures had terrorized the coastal towns, his own included, for as long as he could remember.

They'd taken his parents, and so many other people's families too in an endless war of land and sea, staining the morning tide crimson.

It always started the same - the beautiful, haunting siren song that drifted in like a thick fog, winded its way through the streets, crept into your head and stole your soul away in the night. People tried to block their ears, with anything available, but it whispered in either way, as soft as a lover's kiss.

Anyone who was stupid enough to be out after dark was instantly caught, and getting stuck out at sea was unthinkable, and sometimes they came at day too.

It drifted along now, like a collar and leash, as he clamped his hands over his ears, desperate not to hear and die. His throat felt thick, his muscles rigid as it pervaded his senses either way.

He knew the Dursleys didn't like him, resented having him, but he never thought they'd go as far as set it up that he would be stuck outside like this.. He felt sick, his body electric with terror.

He'd been sent to work in the caves at the end of the beach, just like he did so very often for his Uncle's mining company, only this time, he'd stayed too late in the darkness, knowing he needed to get his work done if he wanted to avoid trouble.

Now he was in even bigger trouble, as he scrambled up the slippery rocks at the cave's entrance, struggling for purchase as the tide rolled in. It was already up to his waist, and tearing along the beach.

He wondered if he could still get out, dart across the waves, he wasn't a bad swimmer, or if he'd just get hurled against the rocky pier by the power of the ocean. Probably the latter.

He suddenly had the terrible certainty that he was going to drown, and he swallowed thickly - wondering if he could maybe even find somewhere high enough upon these slippery rocks to cling to.

Then the song started, and he clung tighter, the waves starting to crash against him with a greater speed.

He didn't...fear death, but that didn't mean he necessarily welcomed it. He was eight year's old, he had so much more to live for then-heads. There were heads in the water, starting to surround him, watching him.

His posture went rigid, even paler them before, and he was already cold in the water.

"Well, well," a voice murmured, like liquid velvet, "we don't normally get one's as young as you. You're all skin and bone."

Harry's head whipped around, his jaw clenched.  
It was the first time he'd ever seen one of them - this one had dark hair and even darker eyes, and skin pale and ethereal like slices of the moon. Harry also caught a glimpse of handsome scarlet scales in the water, then more firmly as the creature pulled itself to rest on the rocks too, right in front of him. It was male.

"I'll give you blood poisoning," Harry said, immediately, not even thinking about it. "I honestly taste horrible. All sorts of infections. And skin and bone like you said, no fat, you don't want me. Really."

It blinked, slowly, head tilting to one side, humming.

"Interesting," it said, after a moment. "You're immune to my song. What's your name?"  
Harry stared, trying not to flinch as another wave crashed down over him and the slippery rock, coughing.

"Harry."

"Pleasure to meet you, Harry," it purred. "You can call me Tom." It circled him once more, studying him with those unnerving, dark eyes. "And you seem to be in rather a predicament, don't you? How long do you think, Harry, until the tide smashes you against the rocks like a brained fish?"  
It reached out, running fingers over his trembling muscles. "You're tired already." The tone was mockingly sympathetic, and Harry hated it, snarling.

What he hated even more was how easily Tom manipulated the waters, seeming largely unbothered by the currents, overpowering them, resting against the rock once more.

"But you could help me get to shore."

"I could," the other agreed, but Harry couldn't help but be uneasily aware of more and more heads surfacing in the water around them, with hungry eyes. He swallowed. "I could also find myself a truly lovely meal..."

A hand ghosted across his cheek, and the next second it had disappeared, reappearing right next to him, cold, wet skin and scales against his back as the waves continued to crash down.

"You could just slip away," it whispered, against his ear. "You clearly don't have all that much left to you if a little thing like is left alone on these rocks. Where's your clan?"

"Dead. Your people killed them." He jutted his chin up, wishing he could shove the creature away, but daring not to let go of the rocks for toppling straight into the churning waters around him.

"Hmm, poor thing," the creature murmured, and though there was nothing in the tone to directly indicate it, Harry was certain he was being mocked again. Its fingers stroked through his wet hair, and the next second, 'Tom' was in front of him again, a smirk upon his lips. "What do I get, Harry, if I help you to the shore?"

"I-I don't-" Harry began, confused. He didn't have a clue what the creature wanted, or why it didn't just kill him when he was so obviously easy pickings.

"Tell you what," Tom interrupted, smirk broadening. "Why don't we make a deal. You're how old...seven? Eight?"

"Eight," Harry said warily, not sure if he should be curious or just more unnerved. The next wave loosened his grip, and he would have crashed against the rocks if not for the arms suddenly around him, cradling his spluttering, sodden form.

The merfolk around them swam and circled a little closer, and the quiet music still rung in his ears. It was something ungodly, unearthly, deadly and the most beautiful sound he'd ever heard all the same. Part of him wondered if he wasn't dead already.

"Well, I'm sure it's evident to you by now that you are dead without my generous assistance," Tom murmured, voice never going above that soft silkiness. "I could drag you under any second-" as if to prove it, the creature dunked his head harshly under the water, holding it just below the surface for a moment or two before he resurfaced, "-or just let you smash against the rocks."

"What do you want?" Harry bit out, eyes tight. "I don't have any gold."

"Ten years."

"Sorry, what?" Harry's brow furrowed.

"My deal is ten years. I'll help you out, and you get ten years to live on the surface. Then you're mine."

"What do you mean, then I'm yours?" Harry's eyes widened, as he twisted against the grip holding him close. The creature just swam out a little more, away from the immediate danger of the rocks.

"Then it means I will come for you. And your current existence will cease."

What, was this type of sick thing about fattening up - or in this case, letting him get a bit bigger - the food source, or something?

But he didn't have to come back. It wasn't like Tom could leave the water, he could just...disappear. And at the moment he was dead anyway, so if such a thing was inevitable, he might as well live a little longer. He didn't know. But he didn't want to die like this, here and now.

"Twenty years?" he tried, hopefully.

"Ten. Or no deal."  
Harry's brow furrowed, and he wondered if he should be concerned about the insistence on that number in particular. He swallowed, and the creature let it's grip slip a little, and the other creatures immediately surged forwards like he was a piece of dropped fish food.

"Ten!" he yelled. "I'll go with ten - just, just get me out of here."

He was spun around again, and Tom's eyes were gleaming in the darkness of the evening. He was surprised when the creature pressed a sharp kiss to his forehead, giving him a flash of pearly, razor sharp teeth, followed by a throbbing headache.

"What did you just-?"  
The other creatures around them had immediately backed off, watching them both with cold eyes.

"You can call it a little insurance, that's all. Take a deep breath now."

"Why-?"  
He was underwater, and Harry immediately panicked that Tom had gone against his word, struggling and thrashing, trying to break the surface again. The creature's grip just tightened further, almost bruising against his arms, and water was rushing through his ears and he had to squeeze his eyes shut and - and - he was coughing and the wind was whipping through his hair again with a salty spring, and there was solid land beneath him.

His head whipped around again, to see Tom retreating back into the waters, as he himself clambered more firmly up the beach from the smaller waves chasing his ankles.

"Run along now, little human," the creature purred. "I'll be seeing you."  
Then he was gone.

* * *

They called him the Boy Who Lived now. They said he could get rid of the creatures, the threat, the sirens, that drew people to the coast and drowned them, because he was the boy deaf to siren song.

He wasn't sure he believed he could end them.  
He knew, in his heart, that the creatures slaughtered and fed on the hearts of so many couldn't possibly be good, but that didn't stop the melody from washing in and out of his mind like the waves lapping the shore. That didn't stop him from remembering that Tom had helped him, when he could have simply killed him.

He didn't know.  
Tom had also made that deal.

The Dursleys had been shocked and outraged when he was found outside the door next morning, shivering and wet, but very much alive still.

They said he was a freak of nature, so rotten that even the mermaids and merfolk didn't want him.

But he hadn't been home for a very long time now though; he'd joined Hogwarts Navy training when he was eleven, and, it was there that he met Albus Dumbledore.

Upon hearing his story and name, and his reasoning for wanting to join the academy, the old man had immediately taken a keen interest in him.

It was only year's later that he found out why.

"What the hell do you mean I'm going to become one of them? That I'm chosen?" he demanded, bewildered. He was fifteen, and sitting in a chair in the Admiral's office.

"Only certain people can become one of them...those that are immune to their song. That's about one person in a hundred. These people are also the only people who can actually kill the creatures too," Dumbledore explained, quietly. "They're typically marked in some way at a young age, claimed by the one that intends to turn them and take them."

"But I met one," Harry said, somewhere between horror and something else. "He let me go-" the deal. Ten years. The words haunted him some more at every birthday, but that was ridiculous. Tom couldn't exactly come out of the water and drag him down into the deep...could he?

Dumbledore watched his expression carefully.

"There's a certain age needed, for the process, a short few years between the ages of eighteen and twenty one, in which you will have the capacity to both kill the creatures, but also become one, if the one with such intention finds you - and believe me, if you've been marked, you will be hunted."

"But surely I could just stay on land between that age and I'd be fine?"

"Yes, but they're petty creatures, and if you spite the deal, they will never stop hunting you until the end of your days."

"Well, so long as I'm not on sea-" he stopped. He loved the sea, now he wondered if that was a symptom, but the fact remained. More so, he'd been in training since he was eleven, what else was there for him? He swallowed.

"You'll be bonded by now. It's any water that you're near, that the creature can appear in. He can't come out, and a glass of water for example isn't very substantial, and it is literally only in the sea. But you'd be able to hear its voice, and so would everyone around you. If it sings..."

"People will dunk their heads into the water source, and, if it's big enough, they'll drown," Harry finished, going cold. "People will drown wherever they go."

He felt like the footing, everything he'd been relying on, had been yanked out from beneath his feet.

"What do I do? How do you know all of this?"

"I had a...friend," Dumbledore replied, eyes growing distant, sorrowful. "He was my first mate. Gellert, he was called. Gellert Grindelwald. He'd been marked too, and in a similar situation."

"What happened?"  
Harry had a bad feeling.

"He made the change," Dumbledore bit out. "He'd always rather liked the idea of immortality, of power and ownership over the seas. You've got to understand, Harry, this has been going on for years...this endless war between sea and land, with millions of casualties on our side." Harry was pretty sure he had brain freeze, and Dumbledore was studying him carefully. "Your mother, Lily, was marked too."

Harry's head snapped up at that, eyes wide.  
"Is she-?" Was she one of them now?

"She didn't want to make the change. It would mean living past all of her friends, and she would never have been able to have you, to have children, due to certain anatomical changes. There was also the matter of what the creatures feed on, and what they do, which as you can imagine, she found objectionable."

"I'm sensing a but," Harry bit out, mind prickling with all of the new knowledge, the sheer enormity of the whole thing. How had he never known before? He'd just been told that his parents were murdered!

"Your father, James, was murdered when you were just a child," Dumbledore said. "He was a Captain of his own ship, the Marauder, and the sirens, the merfolk, whichever you wish to call the creatures, attacked the boat, and picked off everyone in it. Including your father. It was supposed to be his last mission, but he never got home to your mother, who was pregnant with you at the time."

"And what happened to her?"

"She had a child to protect, and it was clear to her too that everyone around her was in danger - whether they were in her close proximity to be drowned or not. She didn't want to raise a child in that environment. So she went out to sea, and they took her, and she starved, guiding sailors away from ships."

"I could do that."

"You could also get out your deal by killing the one who gave it to you. You can't live as human whilst the creature survives."

Harry went quiet at that, before standing up.  
"Thank you for your honesty, sir."

His path was set.

* * *

Harry graduated at seventeen, and soon became Captain of his own ship Green Lightning. He travelled for several years, largely successful in his endeavours and tasks, fighting against the creatures...but conditions only continued to get worse.

There was just more rumours of ships disappearing, of coastal towns wiped out and sailors going missing. And he himself, now nineteen, could no longer afford to keep a crew when they all just sank to watery graves.

The deaths of his first mates, Ron and Hermione, hit him the hardest. He should never have let them come with him. He'd said that at the beginning, but they wouldn't listen.

And everywhere he was followed by that beautiful song which pervaded both his dreams and nightmares.

On land, there were talks of sacrifice, that maybe a select group of humans offered for both turning and eating a year would appease the relentless hunt, and save the majority. It wasn't the worst fate they said, for the creatures themselves were so breathtaking. Harry snorted at the irony of the description, and thought the so called 'solution' was horrific.

It had already been shown that the sirens, the mer-creatures, took whatever they wanted without care for human opinion.

He should have expected human faction to ally with them too, in love of blood, and of the sea, and entranced by the beauty of the creatures. He assumed there was more than one of them, at least.

These humans called themselves the Death Eaters, believing they escaped the kisses of the siren in their cult, and of its song in its deadly quality, by serving the creatures instead.

He should have expected that Green Lightning would be attacked too one day - not by sirens alone. He was becoming one of the most well known sailor's in Dumbledore's Army, fighting against the mer-creatures, taming the seas, alone because he could allow no one with him but those also immune.

They called his ship the 'siren ship' now, and he hated it.

The battle was bloody, and his only consolation as his ship was torn to pieces, everything flying, people throwing themselves into the dangerous waters to avoid the flames, was that at least he was causing due damage on The Dark Mark too.

There was chaos everywhere, shrieking, a vicious struggle to find wood and land and anything of substance as that song came, inevitably.

He managed to crawl onto driftwood with some other members of his dwindling crew, wishing he could block out the sounds of pleasure which turned to screams and blood in the water.

And then he was being hauled up out of the water, onboard, in a quick movement and dusted down, even as he thrashed and struggled instinctively.

If these were good guys, he didn't want them in danger - if they were bad, this couldn't mean anything good.

He was fighting, immediately, catching a glimpse of a female, the Captain evidently, with dark black curls and dark eyes, lips scarlet. He had a bad feeling at the resemblance to memories long ago, managed to fight free, killed one - couldn't believe he was actually leaping off the boat, and the next second everything went black.

* * *

Tom Riddle waited with a smug sense of satisfaction as his prize was brought to him; not that his petty little followers knew of the boy's truth.

If they knew they could use him so much more, he was sure they wouldn't have set him up as a mere offering.

This was how his lovely 'Death Eaters' worked, they targeted a naval ship, overtook it, and then set it on another under promise of death to the captured ship should it fail. Both ships went down, and his human pets picked up whatever loot they could, and whoever managed to survive the assault to bring them here, to the Siren port.

He stayed under the water, watching, head only surfacing in the shadows.

He'd been tracking this one for a long time now. He'd grown up well, and he knew he'd made a good investment, and had done so since he saw those pretty green eyes.

Of course, it was inconvenient when the boy continued to defeat and slaughter about a third of his kin under the delusion banner of the sea-dog, Dumbledore, but he did rather enjoy seeing the boy fight for his life.

It brought back such nice memories of their first meeting, of the boy's ruthless desire to cling to life.

He'd enjoy taming that spirit very much; after all, even with the whole ocean to rule after he killed Grindelwald, his creator, he needed something to do.

Harry's hands were bound, as were his ankle, and his beautiful Captain, Bellatrix, tugged the boy over the water. Harry's eyes had widened with the most delicious horror, as he realised his position.

"No! You can't do this," he thrashed. "Shoot me, hang me but don't put me in the water!"  
There was blood spilt, no doubt to draw him and his kin like bait, like an offering, and he smiled with some amusement, before emerging into view.

Harry went rigid at the sight of him, and it was almost a shame that he'd so put the boy off walking on beaches, like he'd often see him do as a child in that small village, and then he was struggling even harder.

"You'll continue to bless our ship and fortunes, my lord?" Bellatrix asked, breathlessly. She'd no doubt drown herself if he only asked her, and he gave her a smile in response.

"Of course, love," he purred. "Do we not have a deal?"  
She nodded, smirking back at him, and then, without any further warning, she shoved Harry forward so he crashed into the waters with a noise of absolute panic.

He couldn't swim, tied as he was, but he nonetheless struggled towards the surface, gasping for air.

Tom was on him in a second, diving, catching a foot and yanking him under, under and away, whilst the boy thrashed and tried to hold his breath and claw him.

It was amusing how those so strong on land could be so helpless like writhing fish when placed in water.

When the boy was about to expire, he let him bob up some distance away, coughing all over again as he broke the surface.

He was seriously tempted to spend the entire day drowning the boy, and saving him, in a vicious cycle. He'd always loved drowning, there was something about, the frantic desperation, the struggles that grew weaker with time, blue skin and lips.

"Hello Harry. I must say, you've grown up very well. I take it you remember me?"  
Even without him holding on, the boy kept going under, then breaking the surface again, restrained against swimming.

"You bastard, you can't do this-"

"Oh but we had a deal, and you've had three years extra already."

He grinned, tugging the boy out into even deeper waters, before untying him smoothly. Harry stared at him, wide-eyed, treading water, eyes moving frantically for any sign of land, and he smiled, back pleasantly. There was nowhere to go for miles around, he'd made sure of it.

"Take your time, Harry Potter. This part's always my favourite."

"Didn't anyone ever tell you it's rude to play with your food?" Harry spat in response, lunging for his throat. He dived, lazily, and the boy immediately let go. He caught hold of his foot again, amused, holding him just beneath the surface.

Bad manners, but ever so fun.  
It would be over by the time the sun went down.


	3. Impressing Professor Potter

Tom Riddle didn't like the saying "those who can - do, those who can't - teach".

He thought that, with a talented enough professor, teaching was doing and making, it was making an entire generation of wizards in whichever shape you liked, it was the ability to influence enough minds to form a small army.

It definitely wasn't a 'can't'.

Or maybe that was just Professor Potter.

He was new to the staff this year, and looked more like a Seventh Year than a Professor, perhaps due to his diminutive stature and youthful features, even though he was more around the age of twenty five. Or so rumour said.

Most of the student body were swooning over him in someway or other; over his green eyes, or his supposed prowess with a broomstick (in both senses that could be taken), or even his ever so kind manner and bright smile.

Tom never liked to think of himself as someone who went along with the herd, but, in the case, it seemed even the herd mind had picked up on something special. Of course, he didn't much care about something so superficial as the colour of his Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher's eyes, or how apparently kissable his lips were, but…

He did hunger for the knowledge and memories that seemed too old and dark for such a young face, for the shadow in Professor Potter's eyes, and, most predominantly, for the power in Harry's movements when he taught them how to duel.

Most teachers were, at least one hoped and was too often disappointed, proficient in their subject of lecture, but Professor Potter was on another level entirely. He seemed to duel and cast magic as easy as breathing, at least in his field of defensive and even offensive magic.

It was exquisite to watch.

The only irritating part was that the man was completely and utterly oblivious.

He flushed and deflected compliments in class, mumbled he had help in his admirable accomplishments, and either he was a really good actor or he honestly thought Walburga Black really did want some help with her Defence essay. All evidence pointed to the latter, at least by the embarrassed sulk the seventh year Lady Black had shrunk into in days of late.

He didn't normally care much for impressing people. Maybe that was why he was so fervent to impress Professor Potter - because he didn't seem impressed enough! Most of the students and professors, barring Dumbledore, fawned over his ability and talent with magic! Professor Potter treated him just like everyone else, not unimpressed, but not suitably impressed either.

It was infuriating!

Oh, it wasn't done out of spite or unkindness, and the man never neglected to praise him for a job well done - the thing was, he gave equal praise to the small, insignificant magic managed by the worst, weakest and most pathetic specimens in his class too as if their meagre accomplishments were in anyway on the level of his own.

He was leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else, but did that stun the Professor in delight over his prowess? No it did not.

It only made him more determined to prove himself, to possess the Professor's attention, or anything else that the man wanted.

Slughorn was useful, of course, but he was already infatuated with him so why couldn't he have Potter's favour and obsession too?

He wanted it, and he wanted Professor Potter, and he had a policy to always get what he wanted. That, and he rather liked being envied and having what everyone else wanted too.

Their dear new Professor had finally been successfully bullied into attending the latest Slug Club party. Apparently he would make quite a shiny trinket for Slughorn's cabinets too, but Tom was resolved to snatch him up first.

He was a perfectionist, he could admit that, and Professor Potter's approval was a matter of his personal flawless record of approval at Hogwarts.

Barring Dumbledore, as aforementioned, but the old man had always been suspicious of him and didn't count.

He was dressed as smartly as ever, hair not brushed because he didn't want to seem eager - besides, he knew he looked good like this, and the eyes that swept over him as he stepped into the room just proved that.

Professor Potter glanced over only to see who had entered.

The man looked completely uncomfortable, like he wanted to melt into a corner somewhere, or even better through the wall or the floor and out of there, as a wall was a place that allowed him to get too easily cornered by his adoring students.

Slughorn had eagerly engaged him in conversation, and Tom smiled.

Because Professor Potter would bolt before this 'little-get-together' was over. He could see it in the other's eyes, and the almost imperceptible stiffness in his shoulders, in the way his fingers clenched around his flute of champagne.

Slughorn always did love a good time.

He bided his time, not instantly making his way over, consolidating his connections and empire, drawing tidbits of information here and there with a charming smile pasted gracefully on his lips.

Was he looking at him? No. No he wasn't.

His lips didn't pinch, his self control was far too impeccable for that.

Finally, they 'bumped' into each other at the drinks table, whilst the Professor was starting to look like he was at the end of his frayed tether.

"Escaped, did you?" Tom purred, eyes gleaming with amusement. Professor Potter glanced at him, startled, before grinning.

"I wouldn't put it quite like that."

"Of course not, sir," Tom allowed, smirking back gently. "That would be unprofessional."  
The other huffed a small laugh, and he felt smug that he'd managed to coax it out.

"Indeed," Potter murmured. "I don't normally attend these functions."

"I did notice that you looked uncomfortable."  
He stepped a little closer, reaching over to get some more punch, before raising a brow to question if the professor wanted any. Harry immediately held out his cup.

"It was that obvious?"

"It was to me."

"Well, don't use it against me. I like a party as much as anyone, but I was - am - a Gryffindor, and this is all very…" Harry stopped for the sake of propriety, taking a deep sip of the punch.

"Political. Slytherin?"

"You said it not me," Harry said, though by that it was clear he certainly didn't agree. He let his hand graze over the Professor's wrist with an expert subtlety as he drew back, taking a sip of his own drink. Harry didn't so much as notice.

Slughorn did, and looked incredibly jealous.  
It wasn't enough.

Honestly, no wonder the moron didn't have a girlfriend - hell, if someone stripped in front of him, he'd probably offer them his bloody cardigan or robe and ask them if they were cold!

Had he mentioned how much the cardigan's infuriated him? Professor Potter was an incredibly powerful wizard, not a cuddly harmless student-teacher with a side bag and a bloody cardigan.  
It was even worse when he fully suspected his professor was armed to the teeth.

He'd caught sight of the wand holster under his robes before, and he was always prepared for any accidents in class with a spell or, at times, even a potion.

That's what Tom wanted to be: always prepared, for any possibility, because then you could never lose or be outsmarted.

The Professor gave the door a longing glance, which he obviously thought was discreet - and wasn't his conversation interesting enough or something?!

"And what of me, Professor," he asked, keeping his voice soft and velvety, "I'm a Slytherin, am I difficult for you to deal with?"

Potter's eyes snapped back to him, and he blinked.

"What? No, I didn't mean it like that. I mean - you've never given me any trouble-"

Maybe he should start to.

"Did Slytherins when you were at school give you a lot of trouble then?" he asked innocently.

"Excuse me?"

"You've never given me any trouble would indicate a certain distaste for Slytherins, or that some specific ones have given you trouble."

Most Professor's would have stared at him for several long seconds, or fumbled an 'of course not, no."

"I'm a Gryffindor" Potter repeated. "Keep it quiet on the Headmaster's push for house unity because this is a secret but, believe it or not, Gryffindor and Slytherins don't always get on amazingly. Too much rivalry," Potter mock whispered.

Had he mentioned that the Professor always seemed to manage to have an answer or quip in response to his own?

"Really?" he smirked back. "I hadn't noticed. As Head Boy I am of course a most dutiful advocate of House Unity."

"Quite rightly too," Potter returned. He opened his mouth to respond, but the Professor had been spotted again and suddenly everybody wanted some damn punch.

He really wished they were at Hogsmeade, so that there could be some awful attack he could prove himself in. If he was out of Hogwarts, he may even have set one up. Played the hero - the Professor seemed to like doing that.

Didn't change the fact that the man looked even closer to bolting and fleeing the party than he had been before. He suspected the Professor had been honest in his comment; he preferred Gryffindor parties with little pressure, that were about having fun and getting hammered as opposed to making connections and polite chit chat with people you didn't actually care about.

This wasn't a party, it was the birthplace of ambition and the graveyard of pleasure.

He had Malfoy cause a diversion, and quietly slipped out to follow.

"Professor!" he called after the man's back, when they were in an empty corridor someway away.

Harry turned slightly to see him, brow furrowing.

"Shouldn't you be at the party?" the professor asked.  
He strode closer to the man, coming to a stop in front of him.

"I confess that it wasn't really my idea of a fun time."

Harry looked surprised at that, before he smoothed his expression.

"I won't speak ill of a colleague," the man said, after a moment, turning to walk away again, and Tom easily fell into step next to him. "I need to finish marking some papers anyway. Speaking of, I wanted to talk to you about your defense thesis…"

"Sir?"

"A hypothetical exploration of the possibility of defending against the Unforgiveables?"

"I found the topic held my interest. The Imperius Curse can be countered, and every spell has something which can reverse or lessen its effect, aside from those two."

"That's a very ambitious topic."

"I believe I can handle myself, sir," he returned. "For example, I've outlined all the non-moral similarities between the spells to find out why they would be categorised together, and they all affect the nerves or use the target's own magic or body against them. The imperius takes over control of the mind, the cruciatus every nerve ending in the body to cause intense agony, and the Avada Kedavra, from my research, works by shutting down the key functions in one quick sweep, causing instant death. Too fast too cause noticeable damage, because it's not damage, they simply switch off. Like clicking the power button."

Harry was starting to look interested now, riveted, and he reveled in that.  
Finally.

"Do you have any thoughts for your conclusion?"

"Theoretically, if one can combat the Imperius Curse with one's own will, they should be able to do the same with the other two. The killing curse is fuelled by the intent of the caster, and so can be countered by the will of the victim to survive and retain control of their own functions. The Cruciatus is a trick of the nerves, if one can counter the nerves, they can counter the Cruciatus. It's simple, really."

"That's brilliant. Bloody hell, don't take my job I need a salary."

He felt the the praise swell smugly in his chest, and maybe that made him bolder.

"Oh I wouldn't dream of it sir, at least not yet." He had some bigger plans to complete, first. "I need something pretty to stare at whilst I focus my research efforts in class."

He suppressed a smirk as Professor started spluttering, eyes widening, that flush creeping to his cheeks.

"Yes, well, erm-" he ran a hand through his hair. "Good luck on your thesis. If you can pull this off, you'll be certain to get a top grade, and not to mention a gateway into many, er, prestigious professions - my office is that way-"

"I'd love to join you, sir," he murmured, with an innocent smile and a not so innocent gleam in his eyes. Harry swallowed, eyes darting around the corridor.

"Mr Riddle - Tom - you, er, must realise such a comment is, um, inappropriate."  
Seemed he was oblivious, but not so oblivious to not be able to insinuate his meaning from such a blunt comment - at least not in such quick succession of each other.

"Nobody's going to here, and I won't tell anyone, sir."  
He took another step forward, the Professor a step back and it really was ludicrous that for all his skill as an educator and a duellist, such simple social interactions could fluster the other so.

"I-yes- that's not really the point. And-I need to go. Like I said, lots of marking."

The man fled, and he couldn't say Tom was disappointed.  
It had only just gone Christmas after all.

He hummed his way back to the Common Room.


	4. Mirror Mirror

The coffin was made entirely of glass, and Tom couldn't help but find that flawlessly fitting as he dismounted his horse and moved in closer to his prey. His Harry.

The boy with lips as red as blood, skin as white as snow, and hair as dark as a raven's wings.  
Everything had been working up to this, everything had been going perfectly to plan - and though his queen had...disappointed him, it was nothing that couldn't be rectified. Her jealousy may even have improved the situation.

The seven Weasleys eyed him him with suspicion, clustered close around the body, but he ignored them, loathed playing nice, but asked them nicely to open the case for him. If they didn't, well, then he supposed they wouldn't be heard of again.

Then, he leaned in, letting his head lower, and for his mouth to capture those lips, finally. His mirror prince.  
And green eyes shot open.

Show time.

* * *

Seven year old Harry Potter swallowed, staring down at the two graves now in front of him, his jacket pulled tightly around him against the biting cold.

A black, laced glove landed on his shoulder, squeezing slightly, and he tried not to stiffen, eyes red as he kept his eyes determinedly forward.

"I can only imagine how you must be feeling," his stepmother, Bellatrix, murmured. "He was my husband, but your father. It's a...tragedy."

"You enchanted him. Killed him," he replied, very quietly. Her hand tightened on his shoulder, before sliding down, wrapping around his torso in the twisted mockery of a loving embrace, to anyone looking on.

"I'd be careful with your accusations, young prince. I'd love to see you prove it."

But he knew he was right, that it was true.  
His mother, Lily, had died giving birth to him - he'd heard the story so many times from his dad, before. How they'd wished hard for a child, but just couldn't conceive...so they'd made a wish instead.

For a child with hair as black as ebony, skin as pale as snow and lips as red as blood.  
He'd been born a year later.

James had been utterly heartbroken, withdrawn, with a kingdom to run. And then he'd met Bella, and everything was so much better.

Harry grew up with her around, and, though he didn't know why, he knew she didn't like him. When she was around, she would pinch his skin, or give him ridiculous tasks that even in his young mind he knew no one in their right mind could accomplish.

She'd had his mother's awful, greedy Aunt and Uncle called in, to help look after him, because his father - loving, doting, whenever he saw him - was exhausted all of the time. And he didn't stop being tired, in fact, he just seemed to get older and less handsome and more exhausted as time went by - as if all the life was being drained out of her.

He had a horrible feeling that he was next.

Bellatrix sat in front of the large mirror, brushing out her hair, applying scarlet lipstick to her mouth.

She was just as fair as the brat, she should be the one that he loved.  
She had it all too - hair as dark as ebony, pale skin, and now - lips as red as blood. Everything that he'd talked about. Her prince.

There had been so much keeping them apart, but he promised they could be together now. The first had been her lack of status - he had been a prince, he was expected to marry someone of his own status, so she had to heighten her ambitions if she didn't want society to separate them.

So she'd become a Queen, she'd done it. She remained beautiful for him, draining the life of that old love struck King, James Potter, who had the audacity to reject her initial charms and say that she was ugly inside.

She proved him wrong. It had all been so absurdly simple. She was good with her own special brands of sorcery. He'd been proud of her, and, now, she was bound to have her.

Her mirror prince.

There were two realms, directly juxtaposed to each other. She'd been banished here, to the land of good where evil couldn't triumph. It was sickening, and clearly she'd proven that old fairytale incorrect and hasty of judgement anyway.

Evil always won, in the end, because evil didn't fight fair.  
And, if she got him what he wanted, he could bring her back and they would rule together, forever. She'd proved herself, surely that would be enough to overcome her disgrace?

She pouted her lips, checked her appearance, before smiling.  
"Mirror mirror, in my hand, take me from this fairer land."

Soon, his face appeared - the most beautiful face he'd ever seen. Hair as black as raven's wings, lips as red as blood, and skin the colour of snow.

Prince Riddle.

"Mirror mirror, holding her face - you cannot yet return to this place," he returned, almost teasingly. Her expression dropped.

"What is it? Why not? My lord? I have done everything you asked, I killed-"

"Hush...you are beautiful, you know it's true...but there is yet one of fairer blood than you."

Of course. The brat.  
Tom had explained it all to her; he couldn't cross over to this realm and seize control whilst those of fairest blood were still alive. She'd been an idiot to overlook it.

"I'll take care of it," she promised. "I'll have him shot-"

"-No!" he hissed, sharply. Bellatrix faltered, staring at him.

"My lord?"

"His heart. I want his heart."

"You have mine."

A small smirk crossed Tom's lips.  
"I know," he purred. "But I need his too. For the plan. Don't you trust me? Don't you want to be with me, rule with me, my queen?"

"I-" her brow furrowed, "of course I do."

"Then do this for me, and everything will be perfect. His heart, for proof, for sacrifice. Get your best huntsmen on board."

The mirror went empty.

Harry was sprinting through the forest, heart hammering in his chest, knees and ribs and arms scraped from tripping over roots and scrambling to run again.

He was lucky his dad had taught him about the forest, or he would have been dead by now.  
His breath was shallow and ragged, his side burned with a stitch, as he crouched down behind a tree, panting for air, hair sticking to his forehead with sweat.

He was just moving to run again before he heard a twig snap, and the next second he was biting and clawing against the hand smothering his mouth.

He'd heard all about Bellatrix's exploits, of course.

"Mirror mirror in my hand, connect me to the shadow land."

"Mirror mirror on the wall, are you now the fairest of them all?" came the almost immediate response. She eagerly held out the heart for him to see, squeezing it in her hand.

"Dinner is served, my lord," she gave him a smile. "They say a human heart can give eternal beauty..."

He leaned forward, fingers pressed against the glass, before his eyes turned hard.  
"You have been deceived," he said, coldly. "That is the heart of a stag. I would know a human heart on sight. I have dealt with them enough."

"But, my hunter-"

"Your hunter has betrayed you. Perhaps you should take greater care to ensure his heart does not belong to another."

Her jaw clenched, a scream of wild rage erupting from her throat, as she stood.

"I'll kill him. I'll kill them both! I don't understand, why do they not love me?"

But her prince had already gone.  
She just wanted to go home, to him.

* * *

Did they think he was stupid? Harry had been living and surviving and fighting for his life for the last eight years in the forest land, avoiding the Queen's men, training himself - he wasn't stupid. He avoided the assassination attempts sent his way - twice.

For the couple of years after that, after a narrow miss involving getting strangled to death with an enchanted locket that sort to strangle him, he lived with the Weasleys. They were a family of seven, and lived in a rambling home in the middle of the woods.

He was a trained, expert fighter by then, born solely out of experience and many scars and years of looking after himself in the wilderness. So he didn't know how it happened.

An apple, plucked, eaten, and then nothing at all.

* * *

Tom grinned as he felt fairest blood dim, and the connection between the realms open as the boy bit down on the apple.

He dragged Bellatrix in instead, to replace him, ripping out her beating heart and liver.

The shadow lands had fallen into decay since the bitch's exile to these lands. He blamed Grindelwald; his dark city was devastated, and, with the increasing power of this fair kingdom, his own waned by the contrast of light and Dark. Grindelwald had been fool, too smitten with the current fair Lord, Albus Dumbledore.

It was time to even the board out a little bit, and he would use his mirror prince to do it.

Everyone in the twin kingdoms, of light and shadow, had their own counterpart, a 'twin' image, you could say. His was a certain missing Prince.

Hair as black as raven wings, skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood. They had different eyes of course, or so he had at least heard - though he would have liked to witness it for himself. He would witness it for himself.

Three sacrifices, James Potter, Lily Potter, Bellatrix, and a weakening of fairest blood would allow him to pass through - and fairest blood was down to one and dropping.

He'd given Bellatrix a phony spell, of course, she'd grown far too jealous of the boy, of Harry being the fairest in the land and far more worthy of his attention than she was.

The apple would put Harry Potter into a coma like death, rather than actually kill him.  
He stepped out in the solid air of this other land, eyeing the withered corpse of Bellatrix on the floor with disdain, and kicking it to dust in one flick of his boot as he straightened out his appearance.

He wanted to make a good impression. It was there first date, after all, in a manner of speaking.

"Mirror mirror from my kingdom dark, give me the power of broken hearts."

"I'm pretty sure kissing dead people counts as necrophilia. Isn't this romantic, who the hell are you?"

The dark haired teenager ( he couldn't be much older than he was, surely, and he himself was now eighteen?) stared down at him as if he should have said something different.

"And you make a terrible damsel in distress. You're welcome for saving your life," the other purred, caressing a touch down the side of his cheek and jaw, before pulling him by his hand. "What's your name?"

"Neville Longbottom," Harry lied, not even thinking about it. He was so used to not giving his own name now.

Something gleamed in the stranger's eyes, as he pressed a kiss to his knuckles, keeping their eyes locked.

"Pleasure to meet you, Neville. I'm Tom. Tom Riddle."

Tom was patient, he was kind, he played the role of Prince Charming flawlessly. There was something about saving someone's life, even if he had set it all up so that Harry needed his life saved with a kiss in the first place.

He needed the boy's heart, so that the line of fairest blood was broken, but at the same time he couldn't kill him without shattering the balance too much, and having the people rebel against him.

Pity Potter didn't seem to be playing along with his expected role.  
Apparently the teenager found the idea of marrying a foreign, unknown prince just because he saved his life unappealing.

He was certain it wasn't supposed to work like that.  
Maybe it was time to take his heart by other means...but he still had time yet, if he could be bothered to play charming and nice.

Maybe they should go on a romantic picnic. He was sick of playing the visiting dignitary instead of being the King, the supreme ruler of both the shadow and light realms.

He needed Harry alive...but he didn't need him willing and if the boy was going to be difficult about that, well...

Maybe he was bloody sick of all the fairytale happy endings.

Harry couldn't help but feel that there was something off about Tom Riddle.  
He didn't know what it was, the man had done nothing wrong. Maybe that was it. He'd done nothing wrong - he was perfect, flawless, and that just didn't happen and put him on edge.

He wouldn't trust anyone after Bellatrix, his Aunt and Uncle - and Bellatrix had gone missing too, which was just suspicious.

His whole kingdom was in uproar and chaos and he had his hands full trying to deal with it.  
Thankfully, the Weasleys were more than happy to help in anyway that they could.

Still. He barely had time to breathe, let alone give Tom Riddle much attention. Seriously, yes, he was grateful that the other Prince had saved his life, but that didn't mean Riddle had the right to keep thinking he was somehow entitled to have Harry marry him or sleep with him or whatever the hell it was he wanted.

He offered a bloody romantic picnic. He really wasn't a romantic picnic type of person, and he was too damn busy besides. It was like Tom had got his ideas of romance out of a cliche handbook or something.

He didn't know.  
But he didn't have time to it. And he had his teeth on edge anyway, because the man had done nothing to screw up.

That was probably a really unfair way to judge someone, but after the life he'd led, he wasn't going to apologise.

As such, he was incredibly wary when he walked into his chambers, exhausted after a long day's work, to find Riddle already there, with a glass of Harry's father's best wine at his lips.

"You're not allowed in the King's chambers without permission, lord Riddle," he pointed out.

"I kissed you the first time I met you," Tom returned. "I think we're on a first name basis by now, don't you?"

The other didn't glance at him, and Harry rubbed his eyes, starting to strip his shirt and boots off without any care to the other's continued presence. Maybe if he ignored him, he'd leave.

It wasn't that he wasn't pleasant company, he was...but. He'd been around people all day, he needed a bloody break after years used to solitude! He had a new appreciation for his father's diplomatic skills, that was for sure.

His shoulders stiffened as fingers smoothed over his chest from behind, going rigid, hand moving to knock Riddle away with irritation.

He much preferred Ginny, and women in particular - not that he begrudged the other kingdom its apparent customs, but...well, unless he wanted to hire the aid of a sorceress, and considering the stories he'd heard about magic-users, he didn't particularly want to, to gain an heir, that relationship wasn't as valid for the table anyone.

He was the last of his bloodline, as much as he would have loved to have the privilege of marrying solely for love - not to say he loved Tom Riddle - he had his duties to consider.

It was better to try and hedge his bets.  
And something about Riddle just...the Prince was handsome, and they actually looked eerily similar to each other now that he thought about...but...he had eyes like broken glass.

Maybe he was being stupid, but he didn't see why he should jump into hasty decisions. There were lots of visiting Lords and Ladies coming soon, to visit, for a ball, and maybe someone would turn up there. He didn't know.

He was too bloody young to get into anything serious - well, more serious on top of serious he already had ruling a country.

Tom caught his wrist, twisting in one quick movement and then Harry felt his whole body freeze like-like magic! His eyes widened, and he opened his mouth to shout out, to draw his sword, anything! Before that froze too.

Riddle circled his petrified form, letting his fingers trace along his skin, idly, stopping at his heart.

"Stag's heart," the man muttered to himself, seemingly with amusement, before glancing up at him. "You should have just said yes. Mirror mirror on the wall, find fairest power and take it all."

He was falling.

* * *

The boy had put up an incredible fight, and lingered still with iron determination despite his best efforts. He would have to keep an eye on him. Fairest blood was strong, and he wasn't sure if his enchantment would be enough to keep Harry at bay.

He knew this wasn't over. Harry wouldn't let it - but he had his weapon.

A heart in a box, so Harry belonged to him, with a stolen organ so he could forever feel the ache and control everything.

A prince on his knees, unwillingly.

Sometimes being the villain wasn't so bad.

It wasn't over...but this was going to be fun.

He thought the villain deserved to win sometimes.

* * *

_A/N: Snow White/Harry Potter. Don't ask, I have a fairytale obsession ;)_


	5. Rivalry

Most people knew about the rivalry between Tom Riddle and Harry Potter.

The teachers would complain about the obsessive lengths the two would go to beat the other in class work, whilst grudgingly admitting it did wonders for their grades if they didn't blow the room up first.

Their fellow students would watch on with varying levels of amusement, resignation or fear as the two traded jabs which grew only more vicious with age, as more and more history was piled onto a rivalry which bordered on a fued. Tried to stay out of the way. Took sides or made bets.

Everyone wondered where it started from. Some claimed the two had known each other before attending Hogwarts, others would declare they fancied the same girl, a few would say it was the natural consequence of two powerful, opposing yet similar forces being split into Gryffindor and Slytherin.

Nobody would make a guess at something so simple as an unshaken hand.

* * *

When Tom Riddle first met Harry Potter, he wanted to be friends - or, perhaps, he wanted to be the type of boy who had friends like Harry Potter. The first year was like him, he could tell just by looking at him.

He could have given him the world, but he'd refused him, settled for the riff raff instead, and that could never be forgiven.

If he couldn't have him as his friend, he would prove he didn't need him at all. That he was better - better than all of them, and any of the pathetic specimens the boy called his friend.

And maybe, just maybe, if he couldn't have him, nobody else could either and there was a thrill to breaking something so exquisite.

He'd always loved a challenge.

* * *

When Harry Potter first met Tom Riddle he'd thought he was an arrogant fake, with a cruel glint in his eyes.

He didn't like to see his friends dismissed, as if they weren't important. And, as time went on, Tom Riddle became someone he sincerely wanted to ruin.

The boy was perfect at everything! It drove him absolutely nuts. It was like he thought no one could see through his poor little orphan act! Even his hair was bloody perfect, never a strand out of place.

He wanted to punch the bastard just to see if he bled like a normal person. Bloody him up and tear him open so that everyone could see what a poisonous mess he was inside, behind that charming smile.

Maybe he just didn't like losing.  
Maybe at eleven years old he felt pressured by the splits in houses, and was desperate to keep what friends he had.

But things escalated over the years. 

* * *

He got into the Quidditch Team in his first year, through a freak accident with Draco Malfoy trying to impress Riddle.

Tom joined up in second year and knocked him out by smashing a bludger into his head.

* * *

Tom got spells with an incredible ease, so of course he had to keep up with the other's straight 'O' record after the smug little smile he got the first time. It didn't matter if Ron said he was obsessed and that it didn't matter, that he was turning into Hermione, he couldn't bear to see that smile again.

He relished the times he beat him, and his grades soared. They were soon competing top of the year, because though maybe he initially found the theory difficult, it turned out he wasn't without power when he put his mind to it.

* * *

In third year, he was utterly surprised.

He was knocked out in the match due to unseen circumstances with the dementors, and found out that Riddle had all but blackmailed the staff into getting a rematch.

He never thought Riddle was one for winning honourably.

* * *

In fourth year, Grindelwald returned and he'd never been more grateful for how much he'd put into beating Riddle, and thus improving himself.

Riddle was the Hogwarts Champion. Harry was the fourth, unseen.

Maybe that was why there was never any duelling based task - it wouldn't be very good for the school if they killed each other, but the factions grew sharper than ever.

He found himself glad that the boy managed to defend himself enough not to get killed by Grindelwald. Found out he was the Heir of Slytherin.

Didn't expect to, for once, find himself working with Tom instead of against him.

Didn't know what to think after that.

* * *

The Triwizard Tournament offered glory and the possible fame he needed for his plans.  
Typical that Potter would muscle in, as if he wasn't famous and rich enough already.

He did everything he could to sabotage the other, excelled in his tasks. Watched Harry do so too with ferocity. Slammed him aside to get to the cup, felt a surge of disappointment to reach it at the same time exactly, and then ran cold.

It wasn't for Potter. And if it was, it was because Hogwarts would be no fun without somebody to beat, and he couldn't move on if some other Dark Lord decided to kill of his rivals. He had plans for the Wizarding World, and they didn't include prostrating himself before Grindelwald.

But something shifted.

He wondered how things would be if Harry was always on his side. If he'd shaken his hand.

* * *

In fifth year, everything got serious, and such petty squabbles no longer mattered.

It still irritated to see Riddle win at anything, if only because he couldn't help but be terrified that if he couldn't beat his classmate, how could he possibly beat Grindelwald when he had years of magical experience on him?

Then Sirius died, and it was all his fault, and he was crushed beneath the weight of a prophecy he didn't have the first clue what to do with, and nothing mattered anymore.

* * *

He should have been focused on his plans for becoming the newest ruler of Wizarding Britain, of his utopia, but he also couldn't help but note how subdued Potter was.

He looked crushed. Broken. And no one was to break his toys, except him.  
He tried to ignore it. Managed to convince himself of a victory as the boy's grades began to slip with stress and the clear shadows of exhaustion under his eyes.

By sixth year, when Harry quit the Quidditch Team, he'd had enough.

* * *

Harry walked down the corridor, hands stuffed in his pockets and his head downcast.  
His head was spinning.

He just felt so hollow. It just felt like he had no chance in this war, and Dumbledore was being too bloody elusive to be of any help. He just…felt so alone.

If he had friends, he was just in danger of getting them killed. Grindelwald had made that clear.  
More so…it had become evident that he was just a piece, a pawn, against Dumbledore.

He didn't feel like the man's equal, certainly. He felt like a piece of tug of rope between the two lords, a bargaining chip on an age old feud he'd somehow got dragged into.

He barely even noticed Riddle approach him, shoving him hard in the shoulder.

"You quit the Quidditch team," the other near hissed at him. He blinked, startled - because that could hardly matter now.

"Yeah. Congrats. You won. I yield," he said, tiredly, after a moment. "I don't have time for this." He turned away, to continue walking, only to definitely-not-yelp-in-shock when Riddle grabbed the front of his collar and shoved him into the wall.

"You will make time for me," Tom said, firmly. Harry's eyes widened, and he wetted his lips. "Is that clear?"

His mouth dried.  
"My god, maybe some of the rumours are right and you really do fancy me. Jealous of the Dark Lord, Riddle?" he tried his patented sneer, and to throw the other off him. "Get off." He turned his head away, only for Riddle to snatch hold of his chin and jerk his head back in an unforgiving clear.

"I said am I making myself clear? I don't know what type of angsty heroic slump you've gotten into, but you best shake yourself out of it quickly because I'm losing patience."

"Oh yes, because it's all about you," Harry growled.

"Yes, actually it is," the other said. Harry laughed at that, a disbelieving sort of laugh. Riddle's gaze raked across his features, almost hungrily. "You rejected my friendship, Potter. I do not allow you the audacity of rejecting my enmity."

"Yeah, well no offence to your enmity and whatever else, but I have a Dark Lord trying to kill me. I kind of have bigger problems than beating you in class."

"You didn't beat me in class," Tom said, automatically, grip tightening. But the other had a considering expression. "If Grindelwald is dead, will you snap back to normal? I'm getting seriously bored."

Harry blinked and stared.  
"Yes, I suppose," he replied. Riddle nodded.

"Then I'll help you kill him. We both know I'm a million times better than you at everything, so…easy pickings if you somehow managed to temporarily destroy him as a baby."

Harry gaped.

"I- you are not a million times better than me!"

"Well, I'm certainly a million times more powerful that Gellert Grindelwald could ever hope to be. Should have shook my hand, Harry."

Harry snorted with an involuntarily sort of amusement, head tilting.

"You seriously intend to help me take down a Dark Lord?"

Riddle shrugged, giving him a rather dangerous smirk.

"First one to kill the bastard wins."

Harry laughed.  
And maybe something shifted once more.


	6. Infected

It seemed funny, to Harry, that he'd once been so concerned about whether or not Gryffindor would win the House Cup, or the Quidditch Game. That seemed alien now, inconceivable.

Even the war, Voldemort, seemed faded now - a thing of little consequence when everyone, light and dark, was just doing their utmost best to survive. The Muggles were too.

Anyone who clung to the prejudices of the old world and order, who tried to keep their old way of life and didn't adapt very quickly, were dead.

They were scattered about the country now, and Harry didn't know how many were still alive, or where they were.

It all started in his fifth year; just like everything had started.

He thought, then, that they were only at war with Voldemort. Only at war.

The Dementors swarmed the country, under the Dark Lord's orders and…

He'd never quite anticipated the most awful truth behind a Dementor's kiss. The creature's ruled Britain now - if not the entire planet, duplicating on human suffering, feeding at their own will. And, when they took a soul…that person changed.

Their bodies still moved, walked, talked - but there was no life, no heart, no conscience or memory or soul. There was just an emptiness in their eyes, a gaping chasm of nothing that the 'soulless' soon yearned and ached to fill.

They were always hungry.  
They were always coming; and they never, ever stopped.

A Dementor could suck out your soul, as a delicacy, but concentrated more on the fear and terror and everything else.

The infected couldn't - they just bit, chewed and clawed and mauled at you, trying to get at what you had and they didn't. A soul. Anything to not feel so cold and empty, when that was all they knew, all they were, all they could be.

And with each bite, the sickness came.  
Intelligence deteriorated, strength increased, morality and reason waned whilst the hunger set in. The emptiness, growing inside of them until they weren't who they used to be anymore.

Now his life was murder, and running away,and cities of ghosts and people who weren't people. Soulless. Infected. Devoured, and devouring in turn.

He liked to think that killing them was a kindness, even if they had nothing to move to, no soul to grant them the peace of death. It wasn't easy though.

Maybe it was magic, maybe it was the absolute strength of the Dementors now which powered them in turn - who held their souls captive, so that they couldn't pass on, but the creatures, the infected, were extremely difficult to kill.

Bodies decayed, the air stank sweet with rotten flesh and the putrid odour of death, and still they kept coming. They chewed up bullet wounds, crawled after you with broken limbs.

The only way to destroy them, or at least, to stop them walking the Earth, was fire.

A bit like Inferi there; but an inferi could be controlled, it was the dead come to life - a stereotypical zombie.

The infected were so much worse, because you could watch the life leave their eyes, and their bodies were still warm as they ripped your throat out.

Harry was sprinting through the forests now, as they lurched after him - too many of them. He'd seen too many born too.

At 19, fours years later, he looked very different from his soft, fifteen year old self.

His skin was deeply tanned and gouged with scars here and there, his hair cut short to his head so it couldn't be grabbed. His clothes were filthy - a pair of worn in boots, combat trousers, grubby t-shirt and a battered jacket he'd nicked off his godfather's cooling corpse.

He'd long since stopped retching over such things.

He learnt everything he could, when he could - dark magic, light magic, fighting with a knife, how to use a gun - anything possible that could help him survive!

The undergrowth thrashed and crunched beneath his feet, and his breathing was ragged, his muscles aching and he didn't know when he'd last eaten, or found something to drink, but he kept running because all he knew was that the howling behind him shouldn't catch him.

It was like the baying of wolves for blood, but so human, so painfully human - an incoherent scream of hunger. Empty of emotion, of anything else.

He didn't know how much longer he could do this, but there were too many for him to fight.  
The woods were foggy and it was always dark now, with the Dementors in every city. And, among them, their pets, the infected, picked off humanity.

He didn't think even the Dementors were in control anymore; it was just chaos, and fear.

He kept running; stumbling, and they kept coming.

His wand was clutched tightly in his hand, his last matches against his hip and his lighter there too with an empty bottle of water on the other side.

The trees whipped past him, and his heart pounded in his ears, the weight of four years crashing down from every side.

That was about the time he stepped on the trap hidden in the undergrowth, sending him hurtling into the air by his ankle.

He immediately went still when the steel teeth bit at his ankle painfully, shredding skin, especially when he saw the infected circling below him. He tried not to even breathe, lest they look up, where he was trapped.

He ignored the bile in his throat when one of the creature's was clearly someone he used to recognise - thankfully not anyone he'd been close to, but he'd seen her face around Hogwarts.

He knew if they saw him, they would kill each other to get to him, to feed, with no compassion or sense of loyalty to even others infected.

He fumbled for his knife, ready to slit his own throat if he had to - because anything was better than becoming one of them.

The next second there was fire, both from his own wand down at them, and then…elsewhere too.

The fire was just as hungry as its soulless prey, as it licked at the broken bodies, 'zombies' who screamed in pain without understanding what it was, just a remnant instinct of a destroyed mind, from a dreg of humanity still left in them.

It was hot beneath him, and he felt like he was being cooked on a spit, that this was the end, and he moved his wand quickly to save himself, now that the risk of attracting the worse attention of the creatures was gone.

He dropped himself on the edge of the fire someway away, with a muffled cry of pain at the tattered state of his leg. He immediately moved his wand to fix that too, because not being able to run was a death sentence in this world, and then there was a wand against the back of his neck.

"Drop it," the voice hissed.

"I'm a human! I'm clean - they haven't bitten me -"

"I said drop the wand or I'll throw you back to them, Potter."

He dropped his wand, maybe because it had been so long since someone knew his name, recognised him and…that voice was familiar. High. Cold. Oh god. This had to be some type of joke. His wand was scooped up, and then he was roughly hauled up too, scar prickling a little with pain, meeting a pair of livid scarlet eyes.

Voldemort.

He looked different to the last time Harry had seen him, five years ago, where he was serpentine. Now, he was still thin, and pale and tall, and scarlet eyed, but he looked far more human.

He supposed the man had needed desperately to blend, because someone who looked like the Dark Lord had done, so easily recognizable, would have been thrown back to the creatures.

Harry swallowed, eyes wide.

"It's you," he muttered. "Are you…intending to try and kill me?"

His ankle throbbed.

The man studied him icily for a moment, before shaking his head.

"You don't try and kill me, I won't try and kill you. I don't know how many of our kind there are left, uninfected. I won't waste magical blood. Come, I have a base nearby. Food. Water. Bandages."

"You have food?" It was humiliating how croaky his voice was. More to the point, he had enough to even attempt sharing? "Is it poisoned?"

Voldemort - or perhaps Tom now - shot him a withering look.  
"If I wanted to kill you, I would not waste food and supplies to do it. Idiot."

Well, he supposed that was true.  
He couldn't believe himself, but he followed.

Hunger was the only thing they all shared now.

He stared at the boy-who-lived, the child who had once been the bane of his existence, sat warily opposite him, tearing into his meal. Emerald eyes didn't leave him for one second.

He ate his own food at the same hurried pace, because the time for leisure had long since been wiped out.

"Where the fuck did you get all of this stuff? Seriously, who did you kill? I haven't had anything not out of tin in three years!"

"I grew it," he said, honestly. "I've been growing my own food for three years now. Warded. Hidden in these caves. The creatures don't come here; they cannot enter, my talent in magic is too strong for them."

Harry swallowed, drinking some water.

"This place is amazing. Is it…just you?"

"Yes," Voldemort replied, a little curtly. "And…have you found? You had friends?"

"They're gone," Harry said bluntly. "I have no one. There was a resistance…I've heard there are some people still around, in the mountains in Scotland, but I don't know where they are or how to find them. Rumours. I've been travelling North for a while now. Your…followers?"

"Gone. Many of them were put into Azkaban, after all, were they not?"

Harry looked down.

"I thought the Dementors, that you controlled-"

"So did I. It turns out nobody controls the wretched creatures."

There was an uncomfortable silence, and Harry would have been trying to wrap his head around how bizarre all of this was, if the world made any sense anymore otherwise.

The questions started up again though soon, on either side, with the urgency of people who hasn't talked to anyone else for quite some time.

"Are…do you…you don't think we're the last ones?" Harry broached, finally.

"I sincerely hope not considering we're both male and the idea of being stuck with you for the rest of my life would be both unpleasant alarming."

Harry frowned.  
"You're not exactly my ideal pick either."

But he couldn't work up the same venom and hatred as before, not now, not when humanity faced extinction and he just felt so alone.

"Do you really believe that there are people in the mountains? A hidden, clean city?" Voldemort asked quietly.

"I hope."

And maybe that was all they could do.


	7. Jealousy

Harry could admit it - he'd once had something of a crush on Tom Marvolo Riddle.

In his defence, he wasn't the only one who had, and as far as crush's went, the Slytherin Prefect was rather a standard one to have. He was popular, handsome and intelligent, as well as powerful.

He was also the biggest twat Harry had ever met.

Whilst he showed no interest in people once he'd claimed them as his own, the man seemed to have this relentless obsession in coveting the things that belonged to others and taking them for his own, especially if the object was of high value.

It wasn't just objects as trophies though, it was people too.  
The Slytherin seemed to collect all of the brightest jewels in the collection of humanity - but he didn't really use them.

Oh, he was well adapted to utilizing his resources, that was clear, if he needed to, but he seemed to collect for the pleasure of possession rather than any actual need.

Hermione had once theorised that Riddle desired desire itself, rather than anything that came after that, chasing the power that came from taking whatever he wanted without consequences, and the rush of a game.

His crush had still lingered though, at least for a little bit, despite the jerk attitude, veiled with a sort of simultaneous charm and magnetic charisma.

Eventually, he got over himself, and Riddle too, because frankly he wasn't the type to yearn after someone forever, or chase an unrequited love affair.

He reckoned actually dating the bastard for the short time he had completely cured him. It had been great when he hadn't been dating him, he'd enjoyed the banter, and they'd got on well with the right amount of passion to quickly fall into intimacy.

When they agreed to actually date each other, when he was with Tom, and there was any sense of exclusivity, Tom had just as quickly become disinterested and cold, chasing after other prizes, yet sustaining a dark and dangerous temper if Harry so much as looked at someone else.

It had pissed him off, and whilst he could reluctantly admit the possibility of his own masochistic tendencies, there was a difference between that and Tom's possessive, controlling abuse.

He'd broken it off, with no regret and, as he said - very much cured from the phenomenon which was Tom Riddle.

He was happy with Draco now, a year or so later. Draco didn't constantly screw him over, it wasn't a constant battle without victor and a struggle over every single little thing.

Sure, Draco had his faults too, he could be a spoilt, bigoted little shit sometimes, but he tried, and he was nice at heart and Harry was glad with what they had there.

There was enough passion for it to be interesting, enough conflict, but not too much that it was just stressful and unpleasant.

So he supposed it was just typical that Tom suddenly started showing interest again.

He wasn't the type of person to ever cheat, or be unfaithful, and, frankly, Harry was fully aware that the second he wanted Tom back, accepted him back, that Tom would no longer have any interest him.

It was for the pure, jealous, petty fact that he was with Draco, with someone new and happy in it instead of being pathetic enough to pine after the bastard. Really, as if his whole world revolved around Tom Riddle anyway!

Draco seemed to be shrinking back at Tom's intimidation tactics - and Harry could swear the git didn't do anything. Maybe because he was one of the few who'd had the 'audacity' to dump the twat and leave him, instead of being the one left and discarded.

His boyfriend also seemed to mysteriously be spending an inordinate amount of time in detention, which was funny considering who the Head Boy now was.

And, frankly, Harry was getting bloody sick of it.

That was what had him marching up to the Slytherin heir, one fist clenched, as he swung to deck him across the face. It connected with a rather gratifying crunch.

"Stop interfering in my business and my boyfriend," he hissed.

Tom stared at him, for a moment, that old gleam in his eyes and Harry ignored the way he couldn't decide if the twist in his stomach was unpleasant or pleasant.

He fixed his nose with a quick episkey and tergeo, eyes sweeping up and down Harry's forms.

"I think we should take a walk and have a chat, don't you?"  
The other didn't wait for an answer, grabbing his arm in a vice like grip and dragging him along, even as he tried to wrench himself free.

Tom had always been a domineering twat, but there was something different here, like the darkness that had lurked intoxicatingly below like subtle seduction had splintered through the facade of human decency to something far more brutal, violent and unrestrained.

He just couldn't point what the difference was; it was like a wildness, an almost insanity that simmered beneath the surface where before, even amongst everything, Tom had always seemed so cool and composed.

This wasn't going to end well.

* * *

Tom Riddle was absolutely furious.

He wasn't the type to get attached, he loathed even the idea of sentiment. He loved his toys, he really did, fleetingly, in the moments in which he claimed them as his own, devoured them, possessed them entirely - especially when he took it from someone else to do it.

Which, perhaps, was why Harry Potter itched beneath his skin so much.

He'd had him, and then…he'd slipped away. Normally, he was more careful, made sure his claws were sunk in irreparably so that they'd never really get away from him.

And now…Harry was with the blond. And he looked happy, happier than he'd ever looked with him. He hated it, and, most of all he hated the feeling in his gut.

When he found out he was special, that he had powers, powers that even other power bowed down to, he'd thought he'd never have to envy, or want or feel jealous of other people again. Not when he could just take what made them happy for his own.

But now…

It had been bugging him for a while now, that Harry had left him. It felt unfinished, like a string left unattached and he so loathed loose strings too…but he'd been able to stay in control of his himself, clamp down on the ferocious rage building inside him, because frankly Harry had looked pretty miserable and no one else had him either.

He wanted him back. Now.

He was the one that got away, and no one was ever supposed to do be able to do that!

It was driving him mad.  
That was why he dragged Harry along with him, and ensured Malfoy was in detention. He was pretty sure he was close to pressuring the boy into breaking up with his lover.

Because Harry was his lover, always would be, regardless of any break or Harry's own opinion on the matter.

He'd try this nicely first.

* * *

"I think we made a mistake, and that we should get back together," Tom said, as Harry itched to draw his wand and eyed him warily. He gave a disbelieving snort at the statement.

"No way in hell," he said, flatly. Tom's eyes flickered a little.

"I'll treat you better this time."

"That sounds like something a serial abuser would say," Harry replied. "We both know the only reason you want me back is because I've found somebody else, so how dare you…" he could feel the rage bristling in his shoulders, and shook his head jerkily. He should have punched him twice. "If there was nothing else, I'll be leaving."

Whatever he'd expected of Tom, who had always seemed civil enough even if there was an edge there, carefully refined and polished, he had never expected the other to physically lunge at him.

He snarled, fighting back immediately, even if the Slytherin had the element of surprise, wrestling his wand from him, and jabbing his own back in his jugular in return, straddling him.

Harry glared up at him, because he'd known Tom could get a bit…intense, but this was something he hadn't seen before.

"You're mad!" he said, not quite incredulously. With one quick hiss, he found his hands glued above his head against the floor, and Tom leaned back a bit, pinning him with his weight, studying him.

For the first time, Harry felt a thrill of genuine fear.  
He'd grown used to dealing with Tom's antics over the years, the subtles games of power, the controlling elements and other elements that just didn't ring right among human decency.

He'd never seen Tom like this before, with an edge of almost desperation and certainly a dam broken somewhere. He swallowed.

"Tom," he began, "think very carefully about what you're-" he was silenced by silky lips crushed roughly against his own, Tom's mouth swallowing his noise of protest, that he had a boyfriend, that this was wrong on so many levels-he bit down hard, but that only spurred Tom on further.

Of course it bloody well did, and that mouth worked expertly, and Harry clamped down on old memories, twisting his head away.

"Are you even listening to-" he started again, glaring, pulling at his wrists, trying to kick, anything, as Tom's mouth moved to his neck and…his breath hitched.

This was the problem with previously dating a psychopath. They didn't fight fair, and Tom in particular seemed still remembered everything all too clearly, despite his apparent lack of interest at the time.

"I'll ask you again," the other murmured, fingers caressing the side of his face gently. "Don't you agree that we should get back together? Please?" Those eyes were so earnest, pleading, and Harry wanted to snarl at him because this was what Tom did. He was manipulative, in every sense of the word. "I need you," Tom breathed the words against his ear, and Harry wasn't sure when he'd got them, nibbling. "I love you."

"Then you should have taken the chance back then-"

"-I was an idiot-"

"-Damn right you were an idiot, and you're still a git now, so fuck off and stop screwing my-ow!" Tom bit down rather more viciously this time, and Harry was personally convinced he drew blood. "Seriously, stop it, this isn't funny, it's not right-"

He heard Tom snort at that, but nonetheless withdraw a little, leaning back, and Harry gritted his teeth as Tom shifted, rubbing against him in a casual accidental way that he just knew was deliberate and so very planned.

He refused to squirm under the way the other was looking at him, eyes bright, with the expression that he himself was somewhere between a prized lab experiment pinned under a microscope, some rare dying breed, and then something else entirely.

"He's not better than me. You know he's not." The soft voice was gone now, and Harry blinked, unamused.

"Are you jealous?" he demanded, after a moment. "You have absolutely no right to be."

"The heart doesn't believe in rights."

"Yeah, how long did it take you to research that?" he growled. Tom let the hand slip out of his hair, both tracing down his chest, idly undoing his tie. He felt another jolt of unease, a thrill of something else and hated himself all over again, before moving to the buttons.

"Does he make you feel like I do?" Tom asked, and Harry could feel his heart quickening.

"No, he doesn't. He manages to go longer than five minutes without making me want to take his eyes out with a rusty spoon." He smiled, too pleasantly.

"So there's more passion with me."

"If you equate homicidal tendencies with passion, I suppose. On the plus side for Draco, I actually like him and he's capable of showing affection."

"What was I just showing if not affection?"

"Oh, you show affection to get something, and hence, show manipulative behaviour," Harry replied. "This isn't going to work, so you might as well let me up because I know where you sleep and a curse that makes you feel like you've been castrated!"

"Such unfriendly words," Tom murmured. "We used to get on so much better. What happened?"

"Don't use that nostalgic tone, you know perfectly well what happens, and it starts and ends with you being a git."

Tom hummed, and Harry stared in alarm as the other deftly started undoing his own tie too, shoving that and his shirt aside.

Harry swallowed.  
"I know castrating spells, remember," he warned. Tom just smirked at him.

"Did I ever mention how lovely you look when you're terrified?"

"I'm not terrified!" Harry hissed.

"Painfully aroused?" Tom raised a brow. Harry scowled, even as Tom swooped down, grinding against his hips a little, mouth hot and claiming on his throat, biting down. He swore quietly, fingers twitching where they were magically pinned - and he would have done them if he could just concentrate. His trousers strained and he wanted to punch the wall at that too.

"Tom, out of any fondness you have for me-" the lips were on his again, possessive, demanding his attention and everything he had to give, and he half snarled, fed up, biting down a bit, as Tom shoved his hands to undo his belt, and he panicked, trying to buck the other off and-

"-Harry."  
It was a dead, hollow tone, and he froze, head twisting as Tom lifted his head a little too.

Draco

"This isn't what it looks like!" Harry began, frustrated, furious. The blond had already walked out, fled the scene, he didn't know. Harry had never wanted to kill someone more, as he glared up at Tom.

"I hate you," he said, coldly. Tom pressed a kiss to his forehead.

"So, if you don't currently have a boyfriend…"

His temper exploded.


	8. A Pity - Part One

Harry Potter was Hogwarts' biggest trouble maker.

Wild-haired, wild-eyed and generally untamed; he was constantly in trouble for his pranks, but well loved despite them. They never harmed anyone, particularly, or anything. But they earned him more than enough detentions, enough that by seventh year it had got to the point he couldn't gain another one.

Tom Riddle was Hogwarts' model student.

Always polished, immaculate and in control; he was a prefect, Head Boy, and adored by both his teachers and his peers alike. By seventh year, he'd risen through the ranks of Slytherin and claimed the whole school as his court.

Obviously, there were sparks and the two didn't get along.

From the minute they met, they feuded constantly.

Harry had absolutely never expected it to come to this.

It was late, past curfew - but honestly Harry had a good reason this time. Well, at least a fairly innocent reason that had nothing to do with trouble-making of any time. He'd been to see Luna, at Ravenclaw Tower, and things had overrun. He always stayed as long as he could, because he knew she didn't have all that many friends in her house.

And that was when he ran into Tom Riddle.

"What was it next time, Potter?" the bastard murmured, hand snatching out lightning fast to catch hold of him. "Oh yes, expulsion."

His rival blinked at the sight of him, before a thoroughly wicked gleam appeared in his, even if his lips didn't so much as twitch.

_Oh hell._

Harry stared at him in a mute sort of horror because this couldn't possibly be happening.

"Riddle-" he began.

"But that would be a pity, wouldn't it?" Tom purred.

Harry's eyes narrowed at the words.

"What do you want?"  
He was surprised Tom wasn't simply lunging on the opportunity to beat him and get him kicked out of school and out of the way he could; but he also knew the bastard well enough from the last seven years to know that the Slytherin hardly offered any sort of 'mercy' without a catch.

That smile appeared on the other's lips. Too soft considering it was nothing short of sinful. Riddle hummed, drawing it out, obviously enjoying this all oh so much. Harry could have strangled him. He wanted to. That would solve his problems.

"_You."_

For a moment, Harry just stared at him. Blinked a couple of times. He wanted to ask Tom to repeat it, wanted to be convinced that he'd misheard, eyes flickering with uncertainty.

He knew bloody well he hadn't misheard. His mouth ran utterly dry, and he saw dark, predatory eyes dip to watch him swallow.

He wanted to say 'you're joking' or 'you can't be serious', but he knew Riddle was. His shoulders squared, though he refused to give a more obvious reaction. This was probably obvious reaction. He steeled the most of his Gryffindor bravery, colour rising hot on his cheeks each second that passed, and dropped to his knees.

He didn't see what else he could do. He could curse and fight, but that would draw attention and that was exactly what he was trying to avoid, wasn't it? Teachers knowing he was out after bounds. Again.

More flustered than he cared to admit, he reached for Riddle's trousers, only to stiffen as slender fingers slipped with a deceptive gentleness beneath his chin, tilting it up to an unbearably smug face. Harry's insides lurched, even as he glared furiously at the other boy.

"What?" he growled. "Let's just get this the hell over with, so I can go to bed and you can keep your trap shut and we never speak of it again."

The Slytherin had the audacity to laugh. A laugh too pleasant really, considering the circumstances. And he was not going to bloody well kneel here thinking that Tom Riddle had a nice laugh!

"Get it over with?" Tom raised his brows. "I don't think you understand the full point of blackmail, Potter." Harry's insides ran cold, as Riddle crouched to put them on the same level, eyes bright, breath puffing over his lips. "I'll clarify. I -_own _- you. Until graduation, assuming you'd like to graduate that is, you're my…how to put it for a Gryffindor's understanding…you're my bitch."

Oh god. He was supposed to say something witty right now. Restore the normal balance of things where he felt significantly less like prey. He half wanted to laugh. If he wasn't currently on the receiving end, he would be impressed by just how manipulative the git could be.

"I win, Harry."  
And the Slytherin crushed their lips together to seal the claim.

It wasn't as bad as it could have been.

Harry didn't like to admit, but it was true. Riddle made no demands for complete servitude, he didn't seem to mind all too much that Harry still insulted him, that after a period of fear that Riddle was going to somehow get him expelled at any point he bit back in kisses and gave as good as he got when Riddle wasn't specific enough in his 'orders'. He didn't show him off to the whole of Slytherin house and 'share' him in a humiliating accumulation of what his life had been reduced to.

Of course, it wasn't entirely fantastic either.

Riddle could call him and use him whenever he wanted, and his 'generosity' tended to waver with his mood. It swung between between being left achingly hard and dissatisfied by the bastard (physical stimuli, certainly no real attraction or anything else, Harry would stubbornly argue) as the Slytherin just satisfied himself, or exquisite levels of pleasure where he could barely think straight by the end of it.

It wasn't just in the evenings either. Between classes. In the morning. Basically whenever the whim took him. Sometimes Tom didn't even do it for his own pleasure - at least not physical pleasure - when he just worked on his essays and left Harry panting across the room from him, forbidden to do anything to help himself.

Did it matter that Harry had his own NEWT work? Of course not!

This was all in the first bloody week, so he could only imagine what the next six months could be. Riddle showed no sign of being bored with this new game and his new dominion, either. Actually, he seemed to take the greatest delight in making Harry answer awkward questions from his friend about his 'secret girlfriend' when he came back to the tower with bruises and lovebites visible on his neck.

A month…and Harry was starting to wonder things.

At first, he'd put the whole thing down to Riddle simply enjoying the thought of humiliating him. But he didn't share.

He thought it was the power rush.  
But he didn't exercise all that he could get, when he had Harry so thoroughly at his mercy.

He noticed little details like possessiveness not attributed to mere victory over your biggest rival. The way, just for a few seconds, Tom's expression would occasionally soften when they were both utterly spent. The way Riddle normally just left in the evenings too, but didn't kick Harry off the sofa or the bed or whatever else when he stayed a while.

Being pissed off at Tom Riddle had kept him up at night before, fuming.  
Being utterly confused was a new development.

Two months, and it clicked.


	9. Blood and Shadows

Tom Riddle was entirely satisfied with his life.

Whilst Vampirism had never been his initial plan for immortality, he certainly couldn't say he objected to its perks - the superior senses, speed, and strength. He didn't much enjoy relying on blood to survive, but it was no different to having to eat as a human in his opinion.

Ultimately, it was clear that the advantages outweighed the disadvantages.  
Also, with longer life so securely held, especially when he still had his magic due to his own innovations, he was in no rush for limelight, and in his long years of age, he achieved success.

He was a creature of shadows, and there was a power in shadows too.

He controlled their world, whether the ordinary people knew it or not, and had done so for a while now - manipulating his puppets behind the throne.

He saw no reason to step into the limelight when he could gain all the advantages just as well here, and the freedom to move and slip as he pleased without care or concern for public opinion and official reputations.

Except for one, but for now, that would go unmentioned.

He had created a Utopia, or a blossoming one anyway - Dark and Light magics were treated with equal respect and acceptance in the eyes of the law, and society was getting there too, magical creatures could rely on equal rights and lack of discrimination. Or, at least, less discrimination.

It was worse for the muggles, but society relied on hierarchies and someone had to be bottom, and they made that place naturally in their inferiority.

Of course, things were still messy, and patches of rebellion still had the audacity to challenge his rule - perhaps because he'd set it up so that vampires, and thus himself, could hunt freely so long as they didn't significantly damage the overall population.

Really though, it was the food chain…were all the humans going to stop eating chicken for the sake of a chicken's rights? If his prey could defend himself, then good for them, if not…well, then it was their fault, wasn't it?

He always won. He always got his prey, and he'd always loved games so the cloak and dagger affair of his dining was an exquisite hobby to pass the long sleepless nights.

Whoever said it was rude to play with your food had evidently never tried it and seen how fun it was.

He was on the prowl tonight too, discreet in manner and countenance, gliding along the alleys with his hands stuffed into his pockets.

He felt an intoxicating surge of power as he smiled close-lipped to the people moving past him, or did anything so normal, when he knew if they did anything to displease him he could tear their throat out in a blink.

They didn't know, but he did. And it was wonderful.

He was just feeding on a muggle couple, when he heard the commotion, some distance away, and paused, listening carefully.

Was that…it was…a grin spread over his lips.

Vampire Hunter.  
And he recognised this one.

Harry Potter tracked quietly down the street after his supernatural prey, using magic to mask his breathing and footsteps as he closed in.

It wasn't that he killed all Vampires, but he tracked the ones who murdered without remorse or necessity, just for the fun of it. Those who got out of control and sucummbed to unrestrained blood lust without reason.

There was killing for food, and then just killing because you liked it, and he couldn't abide the latter. The vampires were parasites, and treated all of humanity like a ready meal for the snatching.

He didn't believe in their oppression, but he didn't believe in humanity's oppression either.

Equality was fine, but shifting towards dark and dark creature supremacy through subtle, endless bloody war, was not.

He wetted his lips.

Since his arrival and induction into the Wizarding World, he'd had a lot of his misconceptions challenged, his assumptions defied - and corrected.

He didn't know when he'd decided to become a Vampire Hunter exactly, but he was pretty sure it started around the time one Vampire slaughtered his parents when he was just a boy.

He watched as this vampire dragged her victim into the alley in which he'd followed and tracked her, and now, in one quick movement as the victims neck was bent and sharp fangs gleamed in the moonlight, he lunged forwards.

The creature didn't even see him coming until it was too late, and with the shortest scuffle, was ash and rot on the floor.

"Go," he whispered, to the bewildered muggle, clicking his lighter off.

There were several ways to kill a vampire: to behead them and burn the body, to stake them and burn the body, or for them to feed off the blood of a dead human.

No holy water, no crosses, and the only effect garlic had was because their senses were so strong that the already strong smell of garlic was repulsive to them on that level, rather than any actual damage. Same with sunlight - increased sensitivity, greater risk of burning and blindness, and it could trap them quite effectively out of discomfort, but not kill them.

The muggle woman scattered the scene, and he pulled what he could off the body, only for the back of his neck to prickle with unease. He whipped around, his wand and blade flying, a curse on his lips and a slash of his hand.

It was his wand hand that was grabbed, snapping his wrist and forcing him to drop it and shit, he was screwed.

He was bloody good at his job, and there wasn't a Vampire that could get to him when he was prepared. The problem was that the leeches were fast, and if they snapped his neck before he could attack them…

He was tossed across the alley with a sickening crack, on his feet in a quick roll, fighting, chasing shadows.

There was blood on the floor, so he reckoned his blade or his wand had snagged the creature,  
He kept his breathing careful, senses alert and sharp as he looked around him.

The body of the previous vampire was still dust on the floor, and he was bleeding himself too.

"Show yourself," he ordered. "Or get lost."

A chilling, delighted laugh caressed his skin like the flat side of a knife, and he spun, sharply, only to catch the hint of a dark suit or robes, then nothing.

His insides jolted with unease. This vampire was old, powerful, he could tell that already - the only question was whether it was a wizarding vampire, or a muggle one, full breed or half.

The next second there was another blur and the blade was out of his hand too, and he was pressed flat against the alley wall with his cheek scraping against the brick, a cold form flush against his back, and breath like ice against his ear

"My, my, you do have spark, don't you?" it purred. "I suppose that's to be expected from a Vampire Hunter, especially the famous Harry Potter…"

"Go to hell, or kill me, but for god's sake don't make me suffer your inane conversation," he snarled, in response.

He was abruptly spun, tossed to the ground with a grunt of pain, with a weight straddling his hips and gripping his wrists not even a second later.

He stared at this new vampire - scarlet eyes, burning like flames, skin as pale as a slice of a diamond, dark hair in contrast. His chest heaved, as he fought to get to one of his other weapons, or to lash out with wandless magic…anything!

Oh god. He'd come across this one before.

"Hello Harry." The other gave him a sharp smile, and if there was a jolt in his chest, he ignored it. "You're getting better at fighting every time I see you. Dumbledore is training you well, I see."

He'd met this vampire several times in his career as a Vampire Hunter, whether or briefly or otherwise - the first time when the other had tried to feed on him and he'd stuck a stake in his chest, just missing the heart, and escaped. He still didn't know his full name, only that he was Tom.

Since then, well, Tom had a terrible habit of turning up.

"I'm working," he bit out. "Get off me, or I'll burn you."

"You have no proof I've done anything against your moral code, hero. You won't kill me, or that just makes you a murderer like those you hunt."

Harry glared up at him.  
He also knew Tom did kill people, and that maybe he was involved in something even bigger as he saw him at high society functions too, but he could never prove it.

Tom seemed too well connected.

He tried to wrench his wrists free to no avail.

"I can make an exception for someone as annoying as you."

Tom hummed, adjusting his grip to hold his wrists in one long fingered hand, with too long nails, letting the other move to the red blooming against his shirt, tutting.

"Oh dear, this one looks nasty. Bellatrix is a ruthless one, very old family, I'm surprised you managed to take her on your own, so quickly, without getting your head torn off. Impressive. Maybe one day you'll even be able to successfully hunt me."

"What do you want?" Harry spat. Tom's eyes raked over his with a hungry curiosity, before his hand pressed down hard against the wound, making him gasp out silently in pain, gaze flickering for a moment.

"You," the other said, simply, and he stiffened, eyes widening. The creature wanted to feed on him.

"Oh no - no, don't you dare!"

Tom smirked at him, hand moving up again, easing his neck to the side, fingers fluttering over his jaw. He snapped at the other's fingers, violently, only to have his cheek pressed firmly against the floor, before biting down in one quick movement.

First it was pain, agony, then the endorphins started flooding into the point of injury, along with the numb flutter of blood loss swimming headily through his brain.

With time, his struggles grew weaker, as he watched Tom with glazed eyes, lips a little parted, still twitching every so often, but more drugged up.

He expected to be left for dead on the floor, hell knew he probably caused far too much trouble and killed too many vampires for Tom to let him live again - or just to be fed upon and left weak on the floor for someone to find him, in warning. His leg tried to bring his stake closer to him, but that didn't really work either.

He didn't expect to find Tom's wrist stuffed into his mouth, with copper and blood, and he couldn't breathe and he tried not to swallow, with muffled protests and struggles renewed.

In the end, some slipped down his throat, and didn't stop until he felt a sharp pain in his veins.

Tom pulled back, eyes gleaming.

"You-what did you-"

"I've decided, Harry, you're simply too fun to have around. I've decided to keep you."

The pain was growing in his chest, and he rolled over when the vampire released him for a second, fingers in his throat, trying to throw up, before he was scooped up and tossed over the other's shoulder.

"You can't do this."

"Of course I can. We haven't been formally introduced. Tom, Tom Riddle. You can call me Lord Voldemort."

He recognised that name too, he just didn't know how.

"That supposed to impress me?"

"It will."

There was nothing but ash and rot left behind.


	10. Paper Cranes

Bloodied faces, and bruises. Teeth gleaming in the burnt orange of the street lamp, knuckles cracked.

"Alright?" Potter panted, leaning over his knees to get his breath back as the Orphanage boys scarpered. Tom's chin jutted up, and he drew his shoulders back haughtily. His heart was hammering in his chest, as he tried not to stare wide-eyed at the other boy who'd...

"I didn't need your help, you know. I could have dealt with them."

* * *

_Groaning in the mud, head spinning stars and everything clouded from the attentions of Dudley and his friends- when a hand waved in his line of vision. Its owner wasn't looking at him, and Harry blinked at the pale fingers outstretched towards him. His body ached all over, and everyone had gone silent around them. _

"_Oh for god's sake," Riddle muttered, leaning down and hauling him up by the rumpled front of his shirt. "It just ruins the fun of it if I have to see you lying there all crushed and pathetic. It wasn't for you." _

_Harry looked down and smothered a smile, wondering if this was what it was like to have a friend._

* * *

"They're idiots, you know," Harry said. They were sprawled on the banks of the black lake, the first days of spring lightening the sky. The air was starting to gain warmth enough that coats were no longer needed, and his hair was almost as messy as the other boy's in the gentle breeze.

His jaw tightened at the words.

"Most people are," he replied casually. He could feel green eyes boring into his face, with an uncharacteristic seriousness.

Slytherin and muggle raised was not the funnest of combinations either though.

Eleven years old, and he personally felt he could have been twice that at that moment in time. Harry hummed, head tilting.

"Even me?" Harry raised his brows.

"Definitely you." He sniffed disdainfully. "You're the biggest idiot of them all, Potter."

Infuriatingly, Harry just laughed - and Tom couldn't do a damn thing to tear his gaze away.

* * *

_He could see his parents again. He had a family. _

_Harry couldn't tear himself away from the gleaming mirror, from the familiar-not-familiar faces inside of it that he could look at only. His fingers pressed longingly against the glass, as his mother gave him a sad smile in response. _

_He'd been coming to the room for two weeks now, ever since he first found it, sitting so close that his breath fogged up patches of the mirror._

_He didn't care, and the hardest part was tearing himself away as the hours slipped by. Tom told him not to be so obsessed by the whole thing, but obviously Tom just didn't understand._

_He'd settled comfortably on the floor again now, invisibility cloak draped around his shoulders for a discreet warmth._

_The moment after that, a crack had appeared in the surface of his father's face - splintering out. He whipped around, eyes flashing, just as Tom threw something else at the glass, watching emotionlessly as it shattered to the floor around them. _

_Harry felt indignation swell in his chest, surging to his feet._

"_It's just showing you what you want," Tom stated, coolly. His fellow first year strode over, slapping his cheek hard when he opened his mouth to spew venom and fury. His eyes widened. "It's useless to get lost in such things." For the first time, Tom glared right back at him, instead of looking at him in that remote, considering but ultimately clinical and reptilian way of his. "If you want something, go out and find a way to get it."_

_Harry's mouth ran dry._

"_My family are dead."_

"_So are mine. Make a new one."_

_Harry wondered, not for the first time, what Tom had seen in the mirror of erised._

* * *

His chest tightened with a frozen, alien, terror as he stared at the approaching Dementors. His wand rested slack in his hands, as the shadow crept over his mind like an icy fog.

Tom knew he should run, do something at least, but his limbs felt rooted to the spot. His knees felt terribly weak, and maybe he loathed that most of all.

The next second, a hand slipped tightly into his and there was a blazing light. So bright that it was blinding, that it hurt for a boy like him to look at so pure a thing as that. He'd never been able to cast the spell himself.

He wanted to recoil, from the weaponized happiness, the peace of the patronus that enveloped him like a warm bath. Chased away the chill, and made him feel like he was wrapped up in the type of boy who _could _cast a thing like that. Breathtakingly powerful, defensive and radiant and-

"Don't just stand there!" Harry hissed in his ear, wand unshaking in his hand - patronus pouring out of him. He wanted to lean into it too, steal a little of Harry's light and happiness because the devil knew he had none otherwise, soak up into the closest thing to- "Run!"

And his legs started working again.

* * *

"_Harry - Harry!"_

_He was crying out, writhing in the sheets, the memories and dreams tearing through his mind. _

_Inescapable, unavoidable, leaving him trembling all over. He felt like he was going to be sick. Like he was just being swallowed up by darkness - and not Tom's type of darkness either. _

_The next second, hands were pinning his flailing wrists to the bed, wrenching him straight out the nightmares with a violent shake. For a moment, they lingered hazy. Scarlet eyes, a woman screaming, all the normal things that smeared exhaustion across his features like a bruise. _

_He stared up at Tom, as the other boy hovered over him. His breath caught and choked somewhere in his throat._

"_Tom," he gasped. Even when he stopped thrashing, the fingers remained closed around his wrist - swallowing up each erratic beat of his pulse. He swallowed. Cold eyes studied him, seeming to sear straight through skin and sinew to examine all the dark bits of himself that he tucked away so that nobody ever had to see them. "I'm fine."_

_He squeezed his eyes shut._

_Tom nodded, and disappeared back to his own bed. _

_He was back the night after, and then the one after that until Harry no longer woke up with dead names souring his mouth, and fell asleep instead to the young Dark Lord's quiet warm presence next to him on the mattress. _

_Of course, Tom said it was only so that he wouldn't be woken up by Harry's incessant nightly racket, but...well, a silencing charm could have done that too. _

_And his insides flipped for an entirely different reason that time._

* * *

"Well, make a wish, then," Harry said, impatiently.

The cake was a rich chocolate, painstakingly iced and decorated with all the candles for his age. They flickered gently in the evening light. Tom's gut lurched.

"...you made me a birthday cake."

"Yeah," Harry said, as if that was nothing. "So blow out the candles already. If you let the wax melt onto the frosting, birthday or not, I'll bloody well kill you."

Nobody had ever bothered to make him a birthday cake before.

* * *

"_Well, what do you want to do?" Tom asked, lazily, yawning. Harry's mind shortcuited slightly, as he considered the question. Tom's brow pinched in the beginnings of a frown. "What?"_

"_Nobody's - I mean -" Nobody had ever asked him that. They always had expectations for his path in life, assumptions for what he would be doing, and claims of what it was that he wanted without ever actually asking. _

_He was the Boy Who Lived. His life was set. _

_Tom's head tilted, gaze sharpening in increased scrutiny. Finally, however, the Slytherin just shook his head. _

"_You're an idiot, Potter."_

_And yet, with Tom looking at him like that - he felt like he could do anything._

* * *

"Don't do this," Harry said, softly, gripping his wrist.

"I didn't tell you to come," he snapped back. His father stared back, quivering pasty-faced and pathetic. Tom's grip tightened even further on his wand, the fatal words on the tip of his tongue.

The hatred growing forever, reaching a boiling point in his chest, until he felt he could explode for the need to hurt. To pay back some of the pain and to get rid of it all, until he could feel comfortably nothing all over again.

So maybe he wouldn't have the question of why he was never good enough circling his head like a vulture. Looking at this man, this traitor, he didn't want to be Tom Riddle anymore.

He didn't want _his _name, and he didn't want to be remembered and carried as the shame of the family. He was sick of being nobody, when he could be the greatest of all of them.

"Killing your father won't help," Harry whispered, eyes fixed upon him, intent. "You know it won't. It will just make it worse. Change you."

"Please," his father began, seemingly deciding that maybe he could try again, with an ally so seemingly on his side.

"Maybe I want to be changed."

Harry balked, where he'd stepped in front of him; a tiny wall of conscience and moral integrity. His friend swallowed hard, lips pressing thin. Tom raised his wand in determination.

"Then do it for yourself," Harry said eventually. "Don't do it for him. He's not worth it."

Green light flashed, but it wasn't the same as it was before.

* * *

"_No!" The scream tore out of Harry's throat before he could stop himself. He lunged forwards, after Sirius, feeling like there was something putrid congealing in his blood. It chilled him to the bone and - when warm arms wrapped tight around him - it blazed everything to fire._

_He snarled, eyes wild, kicking and scratching and something exploding inside of him. _

"_Get off me - I can save him - I can still save him-"_

_His godfather slipped peacefully into the veil, as if it was a dream, and Tom grunted as Harry's elbow smashed into his ribs. _

"_You can't," the bastard hissed in his ear, nails raking in. "He's gone."_

"_-Let go of me!"_

"_Don't be such a fool!"_

_They grappled, him managing a few steps forward, only to be dragged back again by the waist or the throat until they were tussling ungracefully on the street, with limbs sore and magic crackling. _

_Fingers clenched painfully tight into his hair. The arms holding him weren't a comfort, they were a deliberate restraint and cage and Harry kept hitting again and again but it did no good. _

"_I hate you," he hissed. "I could have - just get off - I hate you - don't - don't-" his head was pounding._

_Tom's chin tucked atop his head, wand digging into his side._

* * *

Tom didn't care that Sirius Black was gone.

The mutt meant nothing to him, in comparison to the livid boy in his hold who had - through some dreadful fate or circumstance - come to mean everything. He still didn't know how that had happened.

But it was easy to guess what happened next, considering the fading battlefield around them. A sharp pain flared in his side, from a throwaway curse and blood welled hot and sticky.

For a few moments, as he pulled a hand back in a really illogical surprise, he couldn't think at all.

Harry's attention snapped away from the veil, and onto him in seconds.

A thousand different ways that they saved each other, and for the first time he wondered how it would be if they didn't.

He wondered, if he had been the one to tumble into the veil of death, if Harry could scream and sob and rage - desperate to do anything to follow, to make the clock tick back just enough.

He blinked, sluggishly.

He found at later, engulfed in the white of the hospital wing, that Harry had carried him all the way to medical help - damn anyone who got in his way. And, when he woke up, ribs still throbbing with a new scar for his collection, the boy was white as sheet, having passed out in exhaustion from sitting at his bedside.

A ridiculous sentiment, that. Utterly pointless gesture.

He stroked his fingers through dark locks, and the tanned nape of neck that was bound to have a crick by the time the other boy roused again. He watched him breathe, watched the eyes still suspiciously red-rimmed from tears.

Decided, then and there, that no matter what happened, he was never going to let Harry go.

* * *

_Harry's knees were tucked firmly to his chest, as if to somehow make himself as small as possible. _

_His fists clenched bone-white, and he'd closed his eyes. He didn't know how long he stayed hunched there, all the memories of his late Godfather spinning around in his head. _

_He wasn't aware of anyone coming or going, though he knew many of the other funeral goers came over often enough to often their condolences. The words washed numbly over his head, registering only to slip away a second later. _

_In the end, he'd disappeared, just so he didn't have to hear meaningless words of sympathy and comfort offered up again. _

_It took him an inordinately long time to realize that someone was leaning against the gravestone opposite, and his eyes flickered with some signs of life for the first time that night. _

_He considered commenting, on how Tom disliked funerals, and had disliked Sirius even more, on how it was disrespectful for the teenager to be lounging against somebody's final resting place as if he didn't have a care in the world. He didn't have the energy. He hadn't spoken to the other boy in days after he'd been released from the hospital, and didn't know where to start now._

_So they continued to sit there in silence, Tom not saying anything even as the sky grew dark around him. Harry's throat thickened. _

_Tom fell just as quietly into step with him, when he finally left._

* * *

He turned away from Lord Voldemort, because maybe being Tom Riddle could still be worth something after all.

* * *

_He watched Ginny Weasley kissing somebody else, and it felt like his stomach had plummeted right out and onto the floor. _

_His lips and palms tingled, as he forced his gaze away. Just like he always did. Tom shoved a drink into his hand, those eyes watching him as they always did. _

_He felt something else, infinitely confusing tangle in his veins - so different and frighteningly electric in comparison to the comfortable, safe-painful want when he looked at Ginny. Ginny with soft skin, and a wicked sense of humour, and hair that gleamed like the setting sun. Ginny was another life entirely, with the markers neatly placed between the bursts of excitement and the normal firework ups and downs. _

_Tom was hard lines, and something distinctly else. He was the edge of an abyss, and the urge one got to jump off the edge of it all. He was a force of nature, cruel and untamed. _

_His lips were soft, fingers firm against his hip. _

_Breath caressed hot against the shell of his ear. _

"_Always such an idiot, Harry." _

_He kissed back with ferocity._

* * *

Life second-hand, with a bargain sticker slapped on the front like all the broken toys that nobody wanted.

Orphaned child, by choice instead of tragic circumstance. Sovereign of Slytherin, but disconnected by the webs of their fearful respect and his own superiority.

He made himself indispensable, impossible to reject in the force of his powers. Invisible no more, clawing up the ranks of the world until he'd carved himself upon it.

Yet, when fingers curled around his own so innocently, and eager lips worshipped him with an astounding sincerity of want…

For a while none of it mattered at all.

* * *

_The wall slammed hard against his back, but Harry merely stared back coolly at the men in front of him. _

_Slowly, a smile crossed his lips, eyes gleaming wicked-bright with a terrible amusement. He knocked the attempting-to-be-threatening hand off. _

"_Do you really think you're the first one to think of this?" he laughed, low and dangerous and their political enemies were finally smart enough to look scared. To take a step back as he straightened out the creases in his jacket. "You think you're the first to try and use me against him?"_

_His wand dropped smoothly into the palm of his hand, as he stalked forward after them._

"_Everyone knows that the only way to get at Tom Riddle is to get Harry Potter," one of the stupider ones said. Harry grinned even wilder back, teeth more bared than anything._

"_And have they?" he asked, sweetly. "If this is such common knowledge, has anyone managed to get at Tom Riddle?" _

_The curses slipped out, blindingly fast, the battle over before it had barely begun despite the uneven numbers. He stepped down on the leader's throat. _

_Anyone who wanted to hurt Tom had to go through him, and wasn't that rather the point why the blooming politician had a reputation for invulnerability in the first place? Because no one ever managed to get past. _

_Tom never even knew. _

_It was just business as usual._

* * *

They were rising figures in the Wizarding World, renowned for their policies for change.

Harry worked on the social improvements, for equal rights for magical creatures and to tear down the old prejudices. He ran magical orphanages, acted benefactor and organized summer camps for students and kids who need a place in the holidays.

He channeled the remnants of the Potter fortune into being able to offer Wolfsbane Potion to werewolves to free, and a large grounds for freedom without accident on the full moon. He opened up blood banks, and spearheaded charities to the effect of a soldier in battle.

Tom was politician-and-lawyer. He obliterated his opponents in court, wrote up and campaigned new laws to support Harry's ideologies, and made allowances for magical purity in the world. Magical pride.

He wrote up Education Bills, and the integration of Light and Dark arts inside Hogwarts school.

Nothing could stop them.

Though there were plenty who tried.

His expression had gone blank as he looked at the cut on Harry's cheeks. His hand remained perfectly steady as he calmly wiped away a drop of blood, smoothing over otherwise flawless skin.

"Oh, you probably shouldn't have done that," he hummed.

They didn't stand a chance as the terrorist bastards fell to the ground screaming.

It was a symphony in his ears, but the sound of Harry's heartbeat was even better.

* * *

_Tom Riddle was supposed to live forever. Harry could never have imagined anything but - and he certainly never imagined this. _

_His head, and the beautiful, gloriously twisted brain inside was shattered and smeared across the floor with a devastatingly finality. _

_Everyone in the surrounding area had fallen in the explosion of Harry's power, but it was too late and all he could do was cradle a broken body to his chest._

"_Okay, just hold on." He didn't recognize his own voice. "You're going to be okay, Tom. The medics are already on their-"_

"_Harry," Tom interrupted, giving him that look. He looked very small all of a sudden, and Tom was many things but small had never been one of them. Blood dribbled out the corner of his mind. "Don't be an idiot." _

_He couldn't breathe. Couldn't think straight, as if it was him who had smashed on the ground in pieces. Each sound Tom made sounded raw and strained, too loud, chest rising and falling quickly. _

_He tightened his grip, as if the heat of him could stop Tom from fading cold. _

"_I'm always an idiot." His voice wobbled, and normally Tom would have called him out for being pathetic. "I'm sorry."_

_What was the point of him, if he couldn't save the man he loved? _

_Apologies weren't enough. They couldn't be. He started casting healing spells, anything that he could think of that might work. None of it worked. The curse was too strong, the body worn past breaking point and-_

_Tom's fingers were slack, his head lolling in Harry's arms. _

_The look in his eyes was a manic terror he hadn't seen since the Dementors._

"_Don't want to die. Was never on the plan," the other mumbled. _

"_I'm not going to let you die." _

_The look that Tom gave him was so quintessentially Tom, withering, that it only hurt more. Tom was already dying, mere words weren't going to save that and Harry had always been better at fighting than healing. He choked on his snort. It was an awful, wretched sound. _

_Tom was dying, and there wasn't a thing he could do to stop it, or he would have already done so. _

_People were crowded around them, but he had no attention to waste on them. His fingers clenched into Tom's blood-matted hair, lips pressed trembling to his forehead. _

"_Please don't." He wasn't in the habit of begging, and he hoped Tom at least got some satisfaction to hear him do it now. "Don't leave me. I love -" all the things they'd never said, because such things were sentimental and Tom despised all that. Said it in a thousand different actions instead. "I love you."_

_But when he looked down, Tom's eyes were already vacant._

_He didn't have enough left in him to cry._

* * *

The worst part was that he wasn't there.

He heard about the accident - and how could it be a trivial accident out of all things? He heard about it later, after being irritated at Harry for being late to their meeting.

His ears were ringing, as he stared at the bearer of bad news. Nothing made sense, and he could see the messenger's mouth moving, but he couldn't understand a word.

Because Harry was dead, and it had to be some kind of joke.

He didn't kill the woman who told him. He was too far gone for it to even occur, and he didn't notice when she left. He just drifted to the place where they were storing the body.

Harry looked more peaceful in death, than he'd ever done awake or in sleep.

It was utterly hateful.

He brushed hair back from Harry's forehead, hands trembling for the first time in his life.

He'd always thought, if Harry was somehow to die for any reason, that it would be under his hand.

It wouldn't be a muggle car accident, where the miserable fucker didn't even stop as Harry bled out onto the side of the road.

He wasn't quite aware when he hit his knees, but he was sure he was making a spectacle of himself. He didn't care.

Harry was too still. He was never this still.

And still Tom couldn't get a single word out.

* * *

"_You know, there's this Japanese Legend," Harry said, as they sprawled in bed on one rare peaceful morning. "Where if you make a thousand paper cranes, you get a wish." _

"_Sounds ridiculous," Tom scoffed. He was far more concerned with trailing his lips along Harry's neck, and watching him try not to squirm for the third time that hour. "Unless it was imbued in incantations, such a thing would have no magical properties."_

"_I think it's nice," Harry murmured, hand pressing into his back. _

"_You would." _

_He soon had his partner distracted from such idle fantasies._

* * *

They were lined up, all different coloured, a year later. Not for any reason, but just because Harry started making a paper crane each time all his other methods failed.

The house would have been too empty without them, littering up every surface.

He'd resorted to dark magic, to resurrection stones and all manner of other things. It never did any good. It was just shadows and shades, pale imitations that drove him mad with yearning.

He closed his eyes.

* * *

_I wish you were still here._


End file.
